Former NFLer and murderer Hernandez had ‘severe’ CTE
Brain of former player who hanged himself in jail had other troubling abnormalities
The brain of deceased convicted murderer and one-time NFL player Aaron Hernandez had advanced signs of the degenerative disease CTE, his lawyer announced Thursday.
Jose Baez told a news conference in Boston that Hernandez — an instant star as a New England Patriots tight end from 2010-12 before his arrest and conviction on a first-degree murder charge — had Stage 3 (out of 4) CTE, meaning signs were unmistakable and rife.
Although a link between repeated, sports-caused brain trauma (such as concussions) and CTE has yet to be proven, studies relying on biased samples have produced results so alarming as to concern most in the neurotrauma and pro-sports realms.
Hernandez hanged himself in his jail cell in April at age 27 while serving a life sentence for murder without the prospect of parole.
He played in only 40 games over three seasons at the University of Florida from 2007-09, and in only 38 in three seasons with the NFL’s Patriots before his stunning arrest for murder in June 2013.
A study published in July — authored by Boston University’s renowned brain researcher, Dr. Ann McKee, and 26 other medical researchers — identified the neuro-degenerative malady CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) posthumously in 110 of the 111 donated brains of former NFL players. They either arranged while alive to have their brains donated posthumously for McKee at Boston University to examine, or their families — who observed CTE-like symptoms in these ex-players — did so after their deaths.
A Toronto neuropathologist — Dr. Lili-Naz Hazrati, an associate professor at the University of Toronto who works at both Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and the Canadian Concussion Centre — has examined dozens of brains of former professional athletes, but found not nearly the high incidence of CTE as McKee and others.
The world’s foremost experts on traumatic brain injuries agree more research is needed, not just with “convenience samples” as in the July study by McKee et al, but using random samples of athletes from all ages in all collision sports.
As yet, international experts won’t go as far as to chain-link concussions or repetitive head traumas to CTE.
The disease has been connected to abnormal behaviour, memory loss, emotional outbursts and other issues.
Hernandez’s family reportedly donated his brain to McKee and her Boston University brain bank.
Hernandez’s lawyer, Baez, said Thursday researchers told him his client’s was “the most severe case (of CTE) they have seen in someone of Aaron’s age.”
In addition to the severe prevalence of CTE in Hernandez’s brain, McKee also found “early brain shrinkage and large perforations in the septum pellucidum, a central membrane,” according to a tweet from McKee’s colleague, Chris Nowinski, co-founder of the Concussion Legacy Foundation.
Whether any of his brain maladies can be attributed to football collisions might never be known.
But that the brain of someone his age, someone who played only six combined years of college and pro football, had such advanced CTE should at least raise the level of concern of everyone who wants to get to the bottom of the concussion-in-sport crisis.