Doctors took recently found Shane Tamura’s brain, a 27-year-old former high school football player. They found that he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive brain disease linked to repetitive head injuries. This diagnosis comes on the heels of a similar tragedy this past July. In that incident, Tamura shot and killed four people in a Midtown Manhattan office building that hosts the NFL’s headquarters, and later died by suicide.
CTE has become widely recognized through its impact on athletes that play high-contact sports, especially tackle football. The neurodegeneration is a result of repetitive brain trauma sustained over many years, usually resulting in dementia, depression, or other debilitating neuropsychological damage. In its current form, CTE may only be diagnosed after death, making the discussion of what it means for those still living nearly impossible.
The New York City medical examiner carried out a brain exam as part of Tamura’s subject autopsy. They found what they called “unmistakable clinical markers” of early-stage CTE. Tamura was a high school football player in California less than a decade ago. Along the way, he suffered countless violent impacts on the football field. His family said that in his final years, he felt both regret and rage over his mental health challenges. He saw the connections between these challenges and his time on the gridiron.
In a Twitter thread, Tamura begged, “Please study my brain I’m sorry. Reading through his words, what’s clear is that he’s far more concerned about the long-term effects of playing football. He explicitly blamed the NFL for “concealing the dangers to players’ brains to maximize profits,” raising alarm about the league’s accountability regarding player safety.
Dr. Ann McKee, director of the Boston University CTE Center. She has repeatedly examined the brains of thousands of athletes and non-athletes who have undergone brain trauma. She registered that not much has been studied on the connection between CTE and violent impulsive behavior. She challenged that CTE is able to destroy decision-making and judgment abilities by impacting the frontal lobes.
“There is damage to the frontal lobes, which can damage decision making and judgment. It can also cause impulsivity and rage behaviors, so it’s possible that there’s some connection between brain injury and these behaviors.” – The New York Times (referencing Dr. Ann McKee)
Those results in the wake of Tamura’s case have sparked renewed conversations about the effects of tackle football on mental health. We know from evidence that high-speed collisions between players can have devastating effects on the health of athletes. These revelations may lead to increased scrutiny of how leagues like the NFL address player safety and the long-term repercussions of head injuries.