Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy

Eli Manning suffered a head wound after having his helmet knocked off in the 2010 pre-season game against the Jets. (Photo borrowed from here.)

 Even if you are not a football fan, you may have heard on the news that Denver Broncos wide receiver Kenny McKinley committed suicide last week. He was only 23. From interviews of his teammates and coach Jeff McDaniels, it seems that McKinley was not the suicidal type. They recalled him as being thoughtful, and funny, appreciative and always having a smile on his face. His family was equally shocked. So the question is of course, why did he do it? And maybe more importantly, why didn't anyone notice something was wrong?

It is just a coincidence, but I was doing a little reading up on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which is a degradation of brain tissue as a result of repeated blows to the head. It is rapidly becoming a major area of concern in the NFL, and that is where I first herd the term CTE for short. Several past players including Lou Creekmur of the Detroit Lions were diagnosed post-mortem with CTE (see photo). And recent findings are questioning whether baseball great Lou Gehrig may have actually died of CTE. It may be Lou Gehrig maybe didn't die of Lou Gehrig's Disease after all.

Photo of portion of Lou Creekmur's brain. Brown areas indicate deposits of tau proteins. Photo borrowed from CSTE Website.

I am no neurologist, but from what I gather, the basic idea is that when a head gets knocked around too much actual brain tissue gets replaced with Tau proteins which are supposed to stabilize microtubules that are found in neurons which make up the brain. So the whole organ becomes more stable in the cranium, but portions of the functioning brain are sacrificed in the process. This creates symptoms like dementia, and aggression, confusion, memory loss and sometimes unsolicited violence.

On the Wikipedia site for CTE, I read that as recently as this year a 21 year old linemen from the University of Pennsylvania, Owen Thomas, committed suicide for unknown reasons. His autopsy revealed elevated abundances of the Tau protein in his brain. It is believed that those early signs of CTE may have had more to do with his hanging himself, and less to do with whatever was actually going on in his life. He is the youngest documented case of CTE.

I was immediately struck by the similarity between the deaths of Thomas and McKinley, and wonder whether or not anyone has thought CTE could be cause of his untimely death. Of course those closer to him might have reason to suspect he was depressed or whatever, but if they are truly mystified, them CTE could explain it. I don't know if they are having an autopsy performed on him, and you wouldn't think a wide receiver would have sustained that many head injuries as say a linebacker or center, but I mean it is football, and I would think it would be worth investigating. If they did happen to find that he had accumulations of Tau proteins, then...shoot, well, the implications of that would be staggering to the NFL and all the players. And as much as I LOVE football, if it's killing young guys who have barely played in a game, then think of what it's doing to the veterans, guys that have been playing for 10 or more years!
Of course this is all speculation, and I am not a doctor, or a biologist even, so I am really not an expert, but it's just a thought.

Anyway, as I mentioned above the NFL is taking  CTE very seriously. So are the players. In 2009 Matt Burk, center for the Ravens, Lofa Tatupu linebacker for Seattle, and Sean Morey a receiver who last played with the Cardinals were the first to pledged to donate their brains to the Center for the Study of  Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy after they die. This year many other NFL players have followed suit.

I can't help but wonder how, or if, this problem can even be resolved in the NFL. Football is inherently a violent sport, and hard on the body. As long as there is tackling going on, heads are going to get hit and helmets are going to fly. But if you remove the dangers that bring about CTE, you're be left with a very boring, very cautious game that doesn't resemble football at all. So what do you do?