This makes things very interesting. Not only from the CTE and NFL perspective, but from a legal perspective. Can these guys who are brain damaged be held legally accountable for their actions? Will future football players use this defense?
This makes things very interesting. Not only from the CTE and NFL perspective, but from a legal perspective. Can these guys who are brain damaged be held legally accountable for their actions? Will future football players use this defense?
They should certainly be able to use it as a defense if they are willing to submit to an autopsy for a definitive diagnosis.
My grandpa disproved the myths about smoking-related cancer by living to age 90 and not getting cancer. Hopefully Brady can similarly end the scourge of CTE in football.
At Thursday’s conference, McKee flipped through slides comparing sections of Hernandez’s brain to a sample without CTE. Hernandez’s brain had dark spots associated with tau protein and shrunken, withered areas, compared to immaculate white of the sample. His brain had significant damage to the frontal lobe, which impacts a person’s ability to make decisions and moderate behavior. As some new slides appeared on the projectors, some physicians and conference attendees gasped.
“We can’t take the pathology and explain the behavior,” McKee said. “But we can say collectively, in our collective experience, that individuals with CTE, and CTE of this severity, have difficulty with impulse control, decision-making, inhibition of impulses for aggression, emotional volatility, rage behaviors. We know that collectively.”
Quote:
The hippocampus, which plays a key role in memory, had shrunk.
The fornix, which also contributes to memory function, had atrophied.
The frontal lobe, which is responsible for problem-solving, judgment, impulse control and social behavior, had been pockmarked with tau protein.
The amygdala, which produces emotional regulation, emotional behavior, fear and anxiety, had been severly affected.
The temporal lobes, which process sights and sounds, showed significant damage.
Together, they were “very unusual findings in an individual of this age,” McKee said. “We’ve never seen this in our 468 brains, except in individuals some 20 years older.”
Cool take, but a dibilatating brain disorder that severely hampers his ability to determine right and wrong and makes him prone to aggression puts his crimes in a new light. Even his crimes in college as the amount of damage probably means it was extreme for a long time.