CTE test can’t fully account for killer’s behavior
Family and friends of ex-Patriot Aaron Hernandez hope his brain will help explain what turned the rising star into a killer and led him down the path to his tragic end.
But even clear signs of longlasting head trauma won’t make a solid case that concussions had any influence over his behavior, a Boston University sports doctor says.
“He allegedly did a lot more before he really became a professional football player,” said Dr. Douglas Comeau, medical director of the Ryan Center for Sports Medicine at Boston University. “Is that a personality disorder or is that a mix?” He asked. “I don’t think you could say CTE changed the course of his actions.”
Hernandez’s family called for a postmortem evaluation of his brain for chronic traumatic encephalopathy — commonly known as CTE — a degenerative brain disorder linked to repeated head trauma that is known to cause erratic and dangerous behavior.
After he shot himself in the chest in 2012, former Pats linebacker Junior Seau was found to have suffered from the disorder. Boston University’s CTE Center has been the site of groundbreaking research on head trauma and its long-term effects with an in-depth study using brains of dead football players.
But Comeau said even if Hernandez’s brain showed traces of the tau protein — which slowly kills off brain cells — there are too many confounding factors, like chronic drug use and external hardships, to forge a meaningful conclusion.
“Looking at his case, I’d say he had some mental health issues beforehand,” Comeau said.
Hernandez lost his father at the age of 16, which is when he reportedly began lashing out and getting involved in activities that ultimately landed him in prison for life.
But the former football player’s high-powered attorney, Jose Baez, claimed at a news conference yesterday that the state medical examiner’s office was withholding Hernandez’s brain from BU.
“They’re being very vague about what their intentions are,” Baez said.
Dan Bennett, secretary of Public Safety and Security, quickly released a statement in response to Baez’s allegations.
“The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is conducting an investigation into the circumstances of Aaron Hernandez’s death, which may require further analysis of his body. Once that is complete the brain will be released to Boston University. No one is going to stand in the way of the family’s wishes for Boston University to have Aaron Hernandez’s brain.”
Boston University would not confirm that the brain had been withheld, saying it needed specific consent from the family to disclose that kind of information.
To examine a brain for CTE, researchers must preserve it with chemicals and perform an external observation for enlarged tissue before it is sliced and dyed to find traces of abnormal proteins.