Brain Damage

[The Question]

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy - A degenerative cerebral condition associated with recurrent trauma to the brain. Frequently seen in boxers, and football players.
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy - Bad Fucking News.

The Article:


Oh, right, almost forgot, the fucking article:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_1...-brain-damage/



Many of us aspire to be bad motherfuckers, many aspire to be professional fighters. As it turns out, there is a high risk of falling victim to this terrible condition if you are a professional boxer, I can't quote my sources off hand, because I read that shit a long time ago, but it was around 20%.

That's 1 in 5 professional boxers that suffer some kind of cognitive impariment. I don't know what the numbers are for MMA, and frankly, I don't think much is known because MMA is much younger than boxing and there hasn't been much time to study it's effect on fighters' brains. Theoretically, it has been said that MMA fighters suffer less brain damage because the sport involves less direct trauma to the head as motherfuckers like to spend half of each round lying on each other instead of throwing leather. But that is only in theory. And you know what they say about theory: 'fuck theory, let's see that shit live'.

Now, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy is diagnosed after death, at autopsy. So it's not like you can put some fighters in a CT scanner and say 'damn, that motherfucker's brain is small. Time to quit that fighting shit'. There are some signs, but usually by the time they are apparent shit is already way out of control. And brain tissue does not regenerate, it does not heal in any useful way. Once damaged, always damaged.

Shit is real.

Something to think about, if you're planning on being a fighter.

[cualltaigh]

They did a story about this on Triple J's Hack program on Monday this week. Podcast is here.

It was in the context of football codes and doctor's recommendation that after three concussions players should no longer compete. Most interestingly there was a reference to the studies at Boston university around CTE and that it can be developed through multiple sub-concussive hits, so you don't necessarily have to be knocked out for it to happen.

[TheRuss]

This thread is relevant to my interests.

What do you think of the radioactive dyes that stick to beta-amyloid plaques and show up on PET scans (I think one of em's called AV-45)? I'm pretty stoked about them, myself.

[csharp.negative]

We discussed this in my freshman English class (see Fall 2010). Someone had written an article comparing football players to dogs in illegal dog fights and mentioned this happening, so we talked about it because my professor was a journalist for a few years.

It was amazing how stupid the professor and students were in that class when I mentioned the damage your body could take after sustaining the tackle of a 200-300lb football player. "Derr they have helmets and pads they'll be fine." Obviously NOT, since your favorite men wearing tight pants are found with smaller brains. >_>

[ChenPengFi]

RIP Junior Seau.

[battlefields]

Hang on, three concussions? Just three? I had three serious concussions by the time I was 12. When I hit high school, the ambulance was called to my school seven times in a semester, a record for the state. Six of those instances were directly because of me and only two were because of something I did to someone else, the other four were serious brain bangs. This was one semester and nothing to do with footy.

Then I played footy.

I often think about this, because my grandparents both had severe dementia and I had the pleasure of sustaining multiple massive concussions in my youth and in my young adulthood (was cracked over the head 6 times with a metal rod at a party, 69 stitches and a Joseph Merrick- like head later I sturl servivd), plus I was dumb enough to drink and drug myself into oblivion on the regular (sometimes returning to the parties I had to leave to go to hospital, you know, keep up appearances as the hardcore drinker that doesn't let a significant possible brain injury get in the way of his beer, all that stuff you do when you think you're invincible and have many head injuries seemingly in support of the case) and played prop in rugby union (although I did wear head gear, so maybe I'm okurr).

Seriously, how fucked am I going to be? Rhetorical question. I'm already fucked.

EDIT: To give you some perspective, I stopped counting how many stitches were put in my head around 130 (by the time I got 69 in one night, I already had about 30) and after three or four more rounds at emergency, a bitchin' Harry Potter lightning scar and barely any dignity, my last headwound/ concussion the doc told me that I could either get another 5 stitches or, because I didn't come in sooner (cause I was sleeping off the idiot drink) and something to do with the swelling, I could disinfect it and just have a larger scar under the hairline. By then getting "stitches" had lost it's appeal, scars didn't seem to get the girls, especially when you're the one who is to blame. Two weeks later I quit drinking. Not one head injury since.

[ChenPengFi]

I'm in the same boat.
I had three before i hit my teens.
Then i got into dirt bikes.
Last one was when i wrecked my mountain bike, broke my helmet and got knocked out a few years back.
I couldn't remember exactly what happened for days, and still had to piece it together from what witnesses said.

When i woke up the next day, i thought i got in a fight or something.

*looks in mirror groggily*
Cut lips, check.
Bloody knuckles, check.
Fucking headace, check.

Hmm dilated left eye, that really sucks, but check.

*looks over at mountain bike*
Hmm bent handle bar, check.
Broken brake lever, check.
Ohh cracked helmet on the floor, check...
Ahh there's grass still in my teeth, it all makes sense now...

lol...

[P Marsh]

The whole comment of "only diagnosed after death" leads me to believe that the medical community has no idea on the specifics of how the condition forms but the whole connection between concussion and neural degeneration can be seen by high school bio drop-outs.

The three concussion suggestion is probably just the agreed upon benchmark seems like the starting point of degenerative brain damage starts. Other medical factors like variance in resistance to brain damage and accounting for neural plasticity make this the ultra safe suggestion. You get these a lot because the entire medical community never likes to admit that they have no idea what is going on because you don't spend 9 years and $250,000 in tuition to not know what's going on.

[cualltaigh]

Haha, well my three concussive lives are spent, only one in a rugby match though - an attempted trick on a bmx and proving why the commercial waterpark had installed a 'feet first only' sign on that slide round out my misadventures.

Oh wait, nope just remembered at least three more. Dang.

[LarsCG]

It was amazing how stupid the professor and students were in that class when I mentioned the damage your body could take after sustaining the tackle of a 200-300lb football player. "Derr they have helmets and pads they'll be fine." Obviously NOT, since your favorite men wearing tight pants are found with smaller brains. >_>

Last fall there was a series of articles in swedish media regarding brain damage and ice hockey. Pads and helmets won't suffice. And a fun thing is that if you've managed to get some concussions, you're much more liable to mess up and get other injuries too.

http://www.ltu.se/ltu/media/news/Hoc...g-1.85199?l=en

[erezb]

Well they actually can, fMRI and shit.. But you need to take a pic of the fighters brain in the start of his career like when you check his max Vo2 and cardiogram for example and maybe periodically test and compare. Could be a good idea. They say that MMA fighters suffer less because after a knock down they cant recuperate for ten secs, so their suffering is shorter....i don't know if i agree with that..someone laying on you and hammer punching your head after you were knocked down isn't beneficial to your arachnoid membrane either

[kelvis]

Simple solution to that is to shave your head and condition it on a makiwara post from all angles. That way you can build enough callous to cushion the blows better than regular head gear would.
Jokes aside, this is a serious issue and the military is really getting involved as well in relation to battlefield explosions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/us...-to-bombs.html

[csharp.negative]

Last fall there was a series of articles in swedish media regarding brain damage and ice hockey. Pads and helmets won't suffice. And a fun thing is that if you've managed to get some concussions, you're much more liable to mess up and get other injuries too.

http://www.ltu.se/ltu/media/news/Hoc...g-1.85199?l=en

Like I said, my classmates and professor both disagreed that pads and helmets wouldn't suffice. They thought the whole issue was a joke. Also, that was a point made in the article, if I recall correctly. After football players sustained a few head injuries, they were more likely to fumble/be intercepted/etc.

[RWaggs]

Not making any medical claims here...this is all opinion, but there are mind supporting supplements which are available (Nootropics) and some believe that these may be a good safeguard against dementia related conditions, especially for people like Battlefields (seriously, man) who may have, though their sheer awesomeness, put themselves at undue risk.

Bill Romanowski, ex NFL player and sufferer of many concussions, developed Neuro1 to assist in cognitive health. I haven't tried this particular brand, but I hear good things: http://www.nutrition53.com/neuro1.htm

Joe Rogan is a contributor/spokesman for AlphaBrain, which I have tried and have experienced positive effects to my quickness of thought and processing: http://www.onnit.com/alphabrain/

Having said that, and nothing against the aforementioned products (as I said, I haven't even tried Neuro1), but I personally use Memoren: http://www.ruved.net/Memoren_p_167.html

This stuff makes me feel amazing. Better at work, better at training, better at everything. Like I said, I can't speak on these supplements' effect on long term brain health, but others have. I can say that the tangible results lead me to believe that my overall brain health and longevity would very likely be improved with any of these products.

[TheRuss]

Not making any medical claims here...this is all opinion, but there are mind supporting supplements which are available (Nootropics) and some believe that these may be a good safeguard against dementia related conditions, especially for people like Battlefields (seriously, man) who may have, though their sheer awesomeness, put themselves at undue risk.

Bill Romanowski, ex NFL player and sufferer of many concussions, developed Neuro1 to assist in cognitive health. I haven't tried this particular brand, but I hear good things: http://www.nutrition53.com/neuro1.htm

Joe Rogan is a contributor/spokesman for AlphaBrain, which I have tried and have experienced positive effects to my quickness of thought and processing: http://www.onnit.com/alphabrain/

Having said that, and nothing against the aforementioned products (as I said, I haven't even tried Neuro1), but I personally use Memoren: http://www.ruved.net/Memoren_p_167.html

This stuff makes me feel amazing. Better at work, better at training, better at everything. Like I said, I can't speak on these supplements' effect on long term brain health, but others have. I can say that the tangible results lead me to believe that my overall brain health and longevity would very likely be improved with any of these products.

For the record: if the word "proprietary" appears on the ingredients list, it means they don't want to tell you what's actually in it and, empirically speaking, it's probably snake oil.

For actual neuroprotective effects, take creatine.