The Hidden Killer in Contact Sports

The NFL opened a hotline for wive's of their players to call for domestic abuse, psychological mistreatment, and emotional instability. The line was completely flooded for 3 days straight, and they needed to allocate more people and resources because they didn't realize how bad it was.

Bro went from being the best comedic animator to the best commentary YouTuber.

Bo Jackson is possibly the most athletic individual to ever live. He has stated that he would never let his kids play contact sports after learning what CTE is.

The Benoit story is so tragic, one of the doctors who examined his brain said it was similar to that of an 80 year old Alzheimer’s patient. It’s so insane especially with how wrestling was back then.

the human brain is so complex, yet so fragile. too many wrong taps and you’re out

My dad fell 40 feet working on cell towers and cracked his skull. He was an entirely different person after that. Impulsive, violent, developed drug and alcohol problems. I’ve heard so many stories about what a kind and patient man he was before that.

Jovan Belcher went to my high school. After his death they tore down his jersey and all his plaques and awards. What happened to his wife and what he did to himself is awful but the way organizations try to erase the memories of those who suffered is equally as bad when it those same organizations that encouraged/enabled/allowed the trauma to happen to those people

Wrote a 6 page paper about CTE in highschool(2015). My paper was not well received by my teacher because she said there wasn’t much to know about it. I could’ve made that paper 50 pages. After a few concussions my self, I became so obsessed with this weird thing that people seem to just know nothing about. I love this video, thank you

I looked this up after the video ended and a study found that 99% of deceased NFL players had CTE. 110 out of 111 players

Fun fact, EA is not allowed to put concussions as one of the injuries you can receive in Madden. They also are not allowed to put things like helmets coming off when a player gets hit. The NFL tries really hard to hide the fact that its a problem. Go Steelers though

NFL probably doesn’t want any tests to find it in the living. If it releases proteins and they make markers to see stuff like that better I can imagine they can look for it in living people.

Fun fact: Chris Nowinski was a wrestler and knew Chris Benoit, who had asked to speak to him about a month before the tragedy to learn more about concussions and brain trauma and gave Nowinski his phone number. Nowinski called him a week later, Benoit picked up in an argument, said he’d call him back later, and then never did

The number of times you hear professional athletes say "well the research is still coming out" is legitimately heartbreaking. It's one thing to accept the risk and another to be uneducated and unaware of the damage you're doing to yourself.

Im a neuroscientist, and this stuff terrifies me. Neuronal cells in the central nervous system, including your brain, are post-mitotic. This means they dont divide and replicate, so once theyre dead, they aint comin back. Repeated trauma to the brain not only will kill some of these cells directly, but inflammatory responses to this trauma also can create cytotoxic conditions for neurons (its toxic to other cells in the area). Also, Tau protein tangles are one of the primary pathologies observed on dementia, so it makes sense that the symptoms of CTE often mimic those of dementia. And to answer nicks question, the plaque that forms in alzheimers is beta-amyloid protein plaques, along with Tau protein tangles

I worked as a CNA for a long-term rehab facility that had a nursing home connected for patients who unfortunately went terminal instead of recovering. One of my favorite but saddest patients in that wing was a locally famous boxer named Theo. He suffered a hit to the head in his 40's that caused him to mentally regress back to a toddler, with even less motor function. He had to have his teeth removed because he couldn't control his tongue. He was wheelchair bound, and prefered to play with block-in-hole toys all day. His official diagnosis was CTE after suffering a fatal stroke.

If I remember correctly for us soldiers who get CTE it is actually possible for our jobs to do it. Having to fire to many mortar rounds, artillery, firing rocket launchers AT4, and a few other things. I have a buddy who tells me in his unit he had fired 8-10 Karl Gustov rockets. I’ve fired a lot of 120mm mortar rounds and im pretty sure it rattles our heads although not everyone will be affected as much. Gunning and never taking head off mortar sight. It’s sad but definitely now people who exhibit those signs and or anger more know after our service. Not many people care about the service members though they aren’t famous enough so thanks for including us

Anyone seen the 2015 movie Concussion? A doctor basically figured all this out and NOBODY gave a shit. The NFL Lawyers buried him and that was that.

The reason we're told CTE cannot be diagnosed "in vivo" is to protect entities responsible for the damage (from my own personal experiences). We can do a CT scan or MRI right now and see if someone has brain abnormalities. If someone played a contact sport and has these abnormalities at 20 or 30YO, they'll literally say, "we can't know for sure until after an autopsy"...that doesn't even make sense.

It makes it even sadder how it seems like a common theme that almost right after committing these awful crimes, they experience remorse and regret, showing how they were out of control and taking action they only took as a result of this disease

Marine vet here, I’m currently 25 and I’m starting to see these same symptoms. Between splosions contact sports my whole life and currently practicing BJJ and Muay Thai. It’s no joke…