An article in the New York Times covering research conducted by Dr. Lea Grinberg and her team that identified the presence of the disease Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in professional soccer players. To read the full article, see the New York Times website (a subscription is required).
Brain Trauma Extends Reach Into Soccer
Bellini, a Brazilian soccer star who led the team that won the 1958 World Cup and was honored with a statue outside the Estádio do Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro, had a degenerative brain disease linked to dozens of boxers and American football players when he died in March at age 83.
At the time, his death was attributed to complications related to Alzheimer’s disease. But researchers now say he had an advanced case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., which is caused by repeated blows to the head and has symptoms similar to those of Alzheimer’s.
C.T.E. can be diagnosed only posthumously, and few brains of former soccer players have been examined. Bellini is the second known case, according to Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist at Boston University and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Bedford, Mass., who assisted in examining Bellini’s brain. McKee was also involved this year when researchers found C.T.E. in the brain of a 29-year-old man from New Mexico who had played soccer semiprofessionally…
Photographs of Patrick Grange, who had chronic traumatic encephalopathy and died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at 29, at his parents’ home in Albuquerque.Credit…Mark Holm for The New York Times
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated blows to the head, has been found posthumously in a 29-year-old former soccer player, the strongest indication yet that the condition is not limited to athletes who played sports known for violent collisions, like football and boxing.
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