Current Events > Aaron Hernandez had worst CTE ever found in person his age

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/aaron-hernandez-suffered-from-most-severe-cte-ever-found-in-a-person-his-age/
2017/11/09/fa7cd204-c57b-11e7-afe9-4f60b5a6c4a0_story.html?utm_term=.06149bc68c38

Aaron Hernandez suffered the most severe case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy ever discovered in a person his age, damage that would have significantly affected his decision-making, judgment and cognition, researchers at Boston University revealed at a medical conference Thursday.

Ann McKee, the head of BUs CTE Center, which has studied the disease caused by repeated brain injury for more than decade, called Hernandezs brain one of the most significant contributions to our work because of the brains pristine condition and the opportunity to study the disease in a 27-year-old brain.

Hernandez, a former New England Patriots tight end, committed suicide in April in a Massachusetts prison while serving a life sentence for the murder of his friend Odin Lloyd in 2013. Hernandez hanged himself with a bedsheet.

Doctors diagnosed Hernandez with Stage 3 CTE, which researchers had never seen in a brain younger than 46 years old, McKee said. His brain had significant damage to the front lobe, which impacts a persons ability to make decisions and moderate behavior.

We cant take the pathology and explain the behavior, McKee said. But we can say collectively, in our collective experience, that individuals with CTE, and CTE of this severity, have difficulty with impulse control, decision-making, inhibition of impulses for aggression, emotional volatility, rage behaviors. We know that collectively.

Boston University has received few brains to study from people Hernandezs age, so McKee could not say whether Hernandezs brain was representative of a 27-year-old who had played football as much as Hernandez, a high school star in Connecticut and a collegiate standout at Florida. But she found the advanced stage of CTE in Hernandezs brain alarming.

In this age group, hes clearly at the severe end of the spectrum, McKee said. There is a concern that were seeing accelerated disease in young athletes. Whether or not thats because theyre playing more aggressively or if theyre starting at younger ages, we dont know. But we are seeing ravages of this disease, in this specific example, of a young person.

McKee said Hernandez had a genetic marker that makes people vulnerable to certain brain diseases.

We know that thats a risk factor for neurogenerative disease, McKee said. Whether or not that contributed in this case is speculative. It may explain some of his susceptibility to this disease.

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Yeah but the dude sure could catch a ball!
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Football will be banned in like 20 years max.

Eagles need to win this Super Bowl before it's too late.
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Why are the first four sections repeated?
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How does his brain compare to Benoits brain.
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Were_Wyrm posted...

Why are the first four sections repeated?

Because I'm an idiot who can't copy and paste correctly.
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How many 27 year old pro football players have they studied? But click bait gunna get creepifars attention
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Antifar posted...

Were_Wyrm posted...

Why are the first four sections repeated?

Because I'm an idiot who can't copy and paste correctly.

I got to that fifth line and thought "where have I read this before"
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Turtlemayor333 posted...

Football will be banned in like 20 years max.

Eagles need to win this Super Bowl before it's too late.

I doubt professional football will be banned but at least high school football and younger should be.
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Hernandez was a fuck up his entire life, so unless doctors are claiming that he's had CTE from birth it's irrelevant.
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He was a violent thug, and this is no excuse for serial murders.
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I Like Toast posted...

How many 27 year old pro football players have they studied? But click bait gunna get creepifars attention

This is addressed in the article
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Could the CTE have been caused by anything beyond football. Not sure what else could have involved as much impact to the head as football does. It seems like it is the most likely candidate, but I'm not sure how you could make a definitive conclusion on that.
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Wish they could find it in living people. I don't like all these tests being done on suicide/dead victims.
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The Admiral posted...

He was a violent thug, and this is no excuse for serial murders.

For once I have to agree with you. Apparently, before the pats signed him, there were some disturbing things/red flags that came up in a psych evaluation and even bellichick allegedly thought the dude had sociopathic tendencies. I say this as someone who was a fan of his when he played and even had him on my fantasy team one year.
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CarlGrimes posted...

Turtlemayor333 posted...

Football will be banned in like 20 years max.

Eagles need to win this Super Bowl before it's too late.

I doubt professional football will be banned but at least high school football and younger should be.

Then, pro football will fade away on its own, as the talent coming has basically just college experience on the field.

It's not guns, its football that is to blame for America's high murder/suicide rate/mental health problems.
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Fooooootbawwwwww!
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Yeah Hernandez was a mess long before CTE. Apparently the death of his dad completely changed him from a normal football playing kid to a thug wannabe that fired into random cars.

There was nonsense throughout his career too.
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Hernandez was ****ed up well before he reached the NFL, however it's going to be pretty damning for the league if this kid at 27 already had such an advanced stage of CTE.
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FifthBeethoven posted...

Wish they could find it in living people. I don't like all these tests being done on suicide/dead victims.

Unfortunately, they have to. The only way they can fully observe CTE's effects on the brain is to literally look at the brain itself. I doubt anyone would willingly volunteer to have their brain ripped out while they're still alive, because that would, you know, kill them. And people die when they're killed.
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blahblahfatbomb posted...

How does his brain compare to Benoits brain.

There hasn't been much development in regards to CTE research in wrestling ever since WWE bought off Chris Nowinski.
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shockthemonkey posted...

FifthBeethoven posted...

Wish they could find it in living people. I don't like all these tests being done on suicide/dead victims.

They can?t detect it in a living person yet.

ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

The Admiral posted...

He was a violent thug, and this is no excuse for serial murders.

For once I have to agree with you. Apparently, before the pats signed him, there were some disturbing things/red flags that came up in a psych evaluation and even bellichick allegedly thought the dude had sociopathic tendencies. I say this as someone who was a fan of his when he played and even had him on my fantasy team one year.

I?m completely on board with the ?fuck him, this is no excuse? but it?s not like all of the damage was done in the pros. That shit starts to build earlier than that and his brain jostling around while it was still developing likely had an influence on how fucked up he already was by the time he hit the pros.

That said, there are thousands if not millions of people who had experienced just as much brain trauma without murdering innocent people. Hernandez was a sack of shit with or without head injuries.

All fair points, and I agree that it almost certainly made him worse, but in the sense that it probably brought out and amplified already negative characteristics of him. Maybe he wouldn't have ever killed anyone if not for the cte but he was certainly not likely to be an upstanding citizen.
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To be clear the point of noting this sort of brain trauma is not to exonerate Hernandez in any way.
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Most researchers who have commented on the case have said that while CTE definitely does impact someone's impulse control and makes them more aggressive. The premeditated and planned nature of Hernadez's crimes would likely not have been caused by CTE.
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