Ex-NFL Player's CTE Confirmed for 1st Time in Living Footballer

After his death, Aaron Hernandez reportedly was found to have severe CTE. He was not the ex-NFL player cited in a new study. (Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)

By    |   Thursday, 16 November 2017 10:38 AM EST ET

CTE brain damage was confirmed for the first time in a living ex-NFL player, according to a new study. Though now dead, tests on the player while he was still alive enabled the breakthrough diagnosis.

For the last four years researchers have been working towards detecting chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, in ex-NFL players using brain scans on the athletes while they were still alive, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Until now, scientists had only been able to diagnose the dementia-like disease once the person was dead, by examining their brain tissue.

On Wednesday a NorthShore neurosurgeon, Dr. Julian Bailes, said researchers were able to detect the disease in a living former NFL player.

Dr. Bennet Omalu, lead author of the study, first used the experimental brain scan in 2012, CNN reported.

He believed that the presence of CTE could be detected using the scans to trace the presence of tau, a protein that builds up over damaged neurological cells.

Scans were conducted on a former NFL player, suggesting the prevalence of CTE which was later confirmed after his death in 2015, during an autopsy.

Although the player’s name was withheld in the study, he was later confirmed as Fred McNeill who played football for more than two decades, CNN said.

The findings were first presented exclusively to CNN last year, revealing that McNeill suffered sudden behavioral changes, transforming him from a fun loving family man to someone displaying anger, depression and memory loss.

The study published this week noted these changes, stating that the “mood, behavioral, motor, and cognitive changes were consistent with chronic traumatic myeloencephalopathy with a 22-year lifetime risk exposure to American football.”

“Our impression has been (CTE) is a very unique pattern in the scans, said Bailes, per USA Today. “This is the first to have that brain specimen correlation.”

Bails added that it was “very nice to get that scientific confirmation of that scientific truth.”

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CTE brain damage was confirmed for the first time in a living ex-NFL player, according to a new study. Though now dead, tests on the player while he was still alive enabled the breakthrough diagnosis.
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