Researchers say they’ve identified a brain disease believed to be associated with repeated head injuries and concussions in a total of 87 out of 91 former NFL players who had donated their brains to science after they died.
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Scientists with the Department of Veterans Affairs and Boston University — where the nation’s largest brain bank focused on the study of traumatic head injury is located — told PBS’s Frontline that 96 percent of the NFL players they’ve examined tested positive for chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The degenerative disease is largely believed to stem from repeated head trauma. It can lead to memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, impulse control problems, aggression, depression and, eventually, progressive dementia.
Additionally, they found that CTE has been identified in the brain tissue of a total of 131 out of 165 individuals who played football either professionally, semi-professionally, in college or in high school before their deaths.
Forty percent of those who tested positive were offensive and defensive linemen, players who come into contact with one another on every play of a game, Frontline reported.
This finding supports previous research suggesting that it’s the repeated, minor head trauma that occurs regularly in football which may pose the greatest risk to players, rather than the violent collisions that can cause concussions.
This news combined with the upcoming Will Smith “Concussion Movie” is definitely going to make the league offices feel some pressure.
