Aaron Hernandez had severe CTE. That much was already known. But doctors studying his brain following his suicide say the damage to his brain is some of the worst they’ve seen in a 27-year-old, otherwise healthy man.
Hernandez killed himself in his prison cell in April years after he was convicted of the murder of Odin Lloyd. Hernandez’s family donated his brain to science, and researchers in Boston studied his brain for signs of brain damage. In September, doctors announced that he had CTE.
The news of Hernandez’s CTE proceeded a lawsuit filed by his family against the Patriots and the NFL, and it’s terrible news for fans of the sport who insist that its violence is not killing its participants. But the news got worse on Thursday.
Researchers at the University of Boston announced on Thursday that Hernandez’s CTE was on the “severe end of the spectrum” for a person his age.
“In this age group, he’s clearly at the severe end of the spectrum,” McKee said. “There is a concern that we’re seeing accelerated disease in young athletes. Whether or not that’s because they’re playing more aggressively or if they’re starting at younger ages, we don’t know. But we are seeing ravages of this disease, in this specific example, of a young person.”
At Thursday’s conference, McKee flipped through slides comparing sections of Hernandez’s brain to a sample without CTE. Hernandez’s brain had dark spots associated with tau protein and shrunken, withered areas, compared to immaculate white of the sample. His brain had significant damage to the frontal lobe, which impacts a person’s ability to make decisions and moderate behavior. As some new slides appeared on the projectors, some physicians and conference attendees gasped.
The New York Times also published a lengthy piece about Hernandez and his brain online Thursday, and it was the paper’s front page of the sports section on Friday. It’s tough to argue that football and CTE are not directly linked, but it’s sad that it took Hernandez’s death to make this link clearer.
