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Aaron Hernandez's brain shows signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) with a severity beyond anything experts have ever seen in an athlete his age:
The Boston researcher who examined the brain of former football star Aaron Hernandez says it showed the most damage her team had seen in an athlete so young.
Hernandez, whose on-field performance for the New England Patriots earned him a $40 million contract in 2012, hanged himself in a prison cell earlier this year while serving a life sentence for murder. He was 27 years old.
Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist who directs research of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, at Boston University, said her research team found Hernandez had Stage 3 CTE and that they had never seen such severe damage in a brain younger than 46 years old. McKee announced her findings at medical conference on Thursday in Boston where she spoke publicly for the first time.
The researchers described the brain as one of the most significant contributions to their work due to the former athlete's young age at the time of his death. Also at the Boston Herald.
In other news, a lawsuit by the estate of Aaron Hernandez (filed while Hernandez was alive) against a prison phone service has been thrown out:
The identity of a hacker who accessed jailhouse conversations between Aaron Hernandez and his fiancee while he was awaiting trial will likely never be revealed now that a judge has spiked the former Patriot's lawsuit against the phone service hired to record and store non-privileged calls.
Suffolk Superior Court Judge Helene Kazanjian entered her judgment Monday allowing Texas-based Securus Technologies Inc.'s motions to dismiss Hernandez's complaint. It was initially filed in federal court last year, five months before Hernandez hanged himself in his cell at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley. Hernandez's estate was pushing forward with the civil action.
Did American football create a murderer and drive him to suicide?
Previously: NFL Acknowledges Link Between American Football and CTE
Ailing NFL Players' Brains Show Signs of Neurodegenerative Disease
Former Football Star Aaron Hernandez's Brain Found to Have Severe CTE
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @05:57AM (12 children)
>Did American football create a murderer and drive him to suicide?
It's like "journalists" can't help themselves with shit like this. As has been reported in many locations, NFL players on average commit less violent crime than your average US citizen. Granted, it's not a perfect comparison since being rich & famous gets you advantages in the legal system, but regardless, shouldn't the clickwhore question be "Does American football prevent crime?"
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday November 12 2017, @06:00AM
u mad? Been banged around a little bit?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @06:00AM
in football?
Did that include gang initiation rites?
If so, his CTE may have started long before he started playing football either academically, or professionally.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @07:08AM (8 children)
That is not bullshit at all. Major brain trauma is not something to be shrugged off. Sure it is a clickbait type headline, but the point still stands.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Sunday November 12 2017, @07:27AM (7 children)
OP was complaining about the bait question, not the headline. The headline accurately reflects the opinions of the researchers, who seem to be the foremost experts in their field:
http://www.bu.edu/cte/our-research/ [bu.edu]
https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2017/9/26/16372088/boston-university-cte-test-for-the-living-football-impact [theringer.com]
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nations-top-cte-concussion-experts-to-convene-at-boston-precision-health-summit-300534830.html [prnewswire.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by BK on Sunday November 12 2017, @05:04PM (6 children)
That's awesome! The best part is that historically, the foremost experts in various fields have never, ever, ever been wrong! Talk about appeal to authority…
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @07:29PM
The foremost researchers in the CTE field publish their findings as cursory descriptions in the washington post apparently... I would accept a blog that went into detail, but not this.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday November 12 2017, @08:44PM (4 children)
Goddamn. Next time I'll do an in-depth investigation of their entire careers.
They are getting the brains sent to them and have a CTE center. That must count for something.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by BK on Sunday November 12 2017, @09:42PM (3 children)
Well, they could be zombies. Just saying. Having a CTE center could be a good cover.
I'm all for trusting the experts. But not unconditionally. I hate 'they're the experts so they must be right(er)' type statements. Remember, the police are the experts at finding criminals. They have facilities devoted to the purpose. Trust em?
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday November 12 2017, @09:47PM (1 child)
Those facilities can't be called unique though, so it's not comparable.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by BK on Sunday November 12 2017, @10:02PM
Would you feel better if I said the FBI?
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @08:32AM
No, I trust 4chan to find teh bad guys.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Magic Oddball on Sunday November 12 2017, @01:51PM
True; it should have been phrased as, “could football–related CTE have increased Aaron Hernandez's tendency to lash out violently enough to result in a homicide?” Based on the effects of CTE, that's unfortunately a real possibility.
I tried to look into the NFL crime situation, and found that apparently there are some problems with the statistics and how they're interpreted:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/more-on-the-rate-of-domestic-violence-arrests-among-nfl-players/ [fivethirtyeight.com]
(I really need to get some sleep, and I'm pretty sure that if I try to analyze or summarize the results I'll screw them up, so I'll just leave you with the link.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @10:26AM (1 child)
USA USA USA! Let's play ball.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday November 13 2017, @03:59PM
Let's play ball is a phrase I would more likely associate with Baseball.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by crafoo on Sunday November 12 2017, @05:11PM (2 children)
What's up with the jail phone service lawsuit? Did they have poor security? It seems if hackers were able to access the phone calls without authorization then the company should be held accountable. Does anyone know why the lawsuit was thrown out?
(Score: 3, Touché) by frojack on Sunday November 12 2017, @07:47PM
The Link in TFS [bostonherald.com] adequately explains that. I know its an aweful burden to click it and read 4 paragraphs but do try it before asking us to do it for you.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by takyon on Sunday November 12 2017, @08:51PM
The main issue seems to be a legal lack of privacy for prisoners on the phone, making any hacking of the company irrelevant.
Prison phone services are a notable mess:
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=17/06/14/0147239 [soylentnews.org]
https://www.npr.org/2015/10/21/450464766/fcc-moves-to-cut-high-cost-of-prisoners-calls [npr.org]
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ppmemz/pen-pals-phone-calls-from-prison [vice.com]
https://theintercept.com/2017/06/16/fcc-prison-phone-call-rates-court-deregulate-trump/ [theintercept.com]
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/phones/ [prisonpolicy.org]
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(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @08:37AM
There's going to be so few players in 5 years that NFL and all those beautiful State-funded stadiums will be all about the "1/2 time" entertainment and only a sprinkle of heavily sanitized football. Think of it like pro wrestling but with jock straps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 18 2017, @05:28AM
Now that he topped himself, we can tell all kinds of stories about how evil football drove him to kill. It wasn't his will, it was his hurt brain that done it!
Yeah, I'll grant that he got shaken around a bit, but that's how he made his $$$. Just as he still managed to put food down his throat and drive to work, he killed his victim in a conscious action.