Brain injury found in US college footballer who committed suicideRSS Feed

Signs of repeated head trauma that cause brain injury have been found in a post-motem of a star college-level American footballer.

Twenty-one-year-old Owen Thomas, who was the captain of the University of Pennsylvania football team, killed himself in April.

 An autopsy has uncovered evidence of the sort of brain damage seen in much older footballers and boxers, known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

"We know that CTE can bring on things like depression and erratic behaviour and problems with impulse control," said Dr Robert Stern, co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at the Boston University School of Medicine on CNN.

"And there have been several cases of suicide in the past amongst people who were found to have CTE."

Chris Henry, of the Cincinnati Bengals NFL team who died late last year at the age of 26, was also found to have signs of repeated traumatic brain injury.

News brought to you by Serious Law specialists in brain injury

Posted by John Sherrington
 

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