Twenty active and retired members of the U.S. military have agreed to donate their brains upon death to a research project dedicated to understanding the effects of repetitive head trauma.
The program, a collaboration between the Sports Legacy Institute, a nonprofit organization based in Waltham, MA, and the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, has so far focused on professional athletes, garnering pledges from football players such as Ted Johnson to donate their brains for research. Johnson, a former Patriots player, says that he has suffered neurological problems that he believes are linked to multiple concussions sustained during play. According to the Sports Legacy Institute, “10 of 10 brains of deceased contact sport athletes, ranging in age of death from 18-80, have shown some degree of evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy,” also called dementia pugilistica, a neurological disease first identified in boxers that is linked to cognitive decline.
Troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan may also face risks of long-term brain damage. With the increasing use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), many have suffered concussions or more severe head trauma. In March of 2009, the Department of Defense estimated that troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered more than 360,000 brain injuries, and 45,000 to 90,000 suffer ongoing symptoms. TR explored this issue in a feature published in the May 2008 issue, “Brain Trauma in Iraq.”
Don’t settle for half the story.
Get paywall-free access to technology news for the here and now.
