Junior Seau's death again highlights risks of repeated concussions, head injuries | Fox News

The names of significant, big-time players leaving us well before their time and under profoundly tragic circumstances is beginning to pile up into a giant mess for the NFL. The concussion issue and resultant lawsuit could end up morphing into the NFL's version of the asbestos / tobacco class-action. Those lawsuits brought a large companies and an entire industry to its knees.

At what point do they go the way of boxing as a sport? Who would have suggested in the early 1980's -- at the height of the Mike Tyson era and following the Muhammad Ali - Joe Frazier thriller-thons -- that the survival of the sport would be in jeopardy?

Twenty of thirty years from now, we may be telling our grand-children and great-grand-children what it was like to watch NFL football.

From Fox News:
Junior Seau's death again highlights risks of repeated concussions, head injuries | Fox News:

"Seau’s death is yet another in a string of former NFL players who have committed suicide – including Terry Long of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Andre Waters of the Philadelphia Eagles, and Dave Duerson of the Chicago Bears.

Duerson, who also shot himself in the chest, specifically requested that his brain be donated to science so researchers could study the damage repeated concussions had had on his brain.  The researchers from Boston University's Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy who conducted the brain autopsy found evidence that Duerson suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

CTE is a is a progressive degenerative disease that is caused by repeated head injuries.  People with CTE may have symptoms such as dementia, headaches, tremors, confusion, aggression and depression."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/05/03/junior-seau-death-again-highlights-risks-concussions-head-injuries/#ixzz1uKW9BFJl

CTE impacts mental and emotional health by disrupting the balance of neurochemicals in the brain.  When a person suffers a concussion, Crutchfield explained, it incites a release of glutamine, which in turn disrupts the brain’s potassium and sodium channels.  In addition, an influx of calcium to the nerve cells shut down the mitochondria, which supply energy to the brain.  This causes the brain to go into “energy failure.”

“You need energy for the brain to balance back out and for neurotransmitters to stay in balance,” Crutchfield said.  “And so that’s what leads to depression, because depression is a neurochemical imbalance.  It’s common in brain injuries to suffer injury-related depression because of the unbalance of chemicals.”

When the injuries are suffered repeatedly over time, it becomes more and more difficult for the brain to recover from the imbalance, and the condition can potentially become permanent or even worsen over time, according to Crutchfield.

Athletes and others who have reached this point need constant follow-up and adjustment of medication and treatment to grapple with the condition.

“The problem is, older retired players are out of the limelight…and people don’t watch them closely enough,” Crutchfield said.  “Retired players need to have periodic psychological assessment because they do get depressed.”