NFL Player is the First Living CTE Diagnosis
For the first time, scientists claim they have evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) found in a living patient. This would be a breakthrough in the research into the slowly progressive brain disease linked to repeated blows to the head. A study of 14 retired NFL players, published in the medical journal Neurosurgery, found that a signature protein of CTE, known as tau, forms around the damaged neural cells. Doctors diagnosed one of the players, unnamed in the study, with CTE. The player was later identified by the lead author of the study, Dr. Bennet Omalu, as Vikings linebacker Fred McNeill, who died of ALS in [...]