Dead athletes’ brains show damage from concussions – CNN.com

using tissue from retired NFL athletes culled posthumously, the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE) is shedding light on what concussions look like in the brain. The findings are stunning. Far from innocuous, invisible injuries, concussions confer tremendous brain damage. That damage has a name: chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

CTE has thus far been found in the brains of five out of five former NFL players. On Tuesday afternoon, researchers at the CSTE will release study results from the sixth NFL player exhibiting the same kind of damage.

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“What’s been surprising is that it’s so extensive,” said Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Bedford, Massachusetts, and co-director of the CSTE. “It’s throughout the brain, not just on the superficial aspects of the brain, but it’s deep inside.”

CSTE studies reveal brown tangles flecked throughout the brain tissue of former NFL players who died young — some as early as their 30s or 40s.

McKee, who also studies Alzheimer’s disease, says the tangles closely resemble what might be found in the brain of an 80-year-old with dementia.

“I knew what traumatic brain disease looked like in the very end stages, in the most severe cases,” said McKee. “To see the kind of changes we’re seeing in 45-year-olds is basically unheard of.”

via Dead athletes’ brains show damage from concussions – CNN.com.

Okay, we’re getting proof this is pretty serious crap. Can we PLEASE get beyond the “heh heh, bell rung. shake it off and get out there” mentality and do something? Bluntly, if there’s an argument against fighting in hockey, THIS is it. As I’ve said before, I really want to see the league get serious about attacks to the head — but it’s hard to rationalize that position with fighting in the league. You can’t hit someone in the head, unless you take your gloves off first?

At the same time, it has to be done in a way that preserves the physicality of the sport. And the tradeoffs there are tough ones, it’s not as simple as outlawing hits to the head or trying to do away with fighting.

But because it’s tough doesn’t imply it shouldn’t be tackled. Just that the answers aren’t as simple as many fans and media types want to portray it to be.

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