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New York, 12:39 PM
Mon Nov 23
18 posts in the last 24 hours

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This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Football

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Chalkdust
01/29/09

In reply to This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Football
The Steelers sound crew doesn't get what the big deal is. As long they get up they're fine, right?

/dick joke

..I think no matter how many Romanowski's, Ted Johnson's, or Chris Benoit's we see, football, wrestling, hockey, and boxing are just going to look the other way on this unless they are somehow forced to do better. Maybe steroids isn't the only area where the government has to look into forcing leagues to take care of players.

And how do we fix that? I don't know.. maybe all that can be done is more research, spread the information out there, speak on this as a mandatory part of rookie initiation. But ultimately it will probably be up to the athletes to control themselves. Leagues/companies can put in higher fines, suspensions, but I don't see that stopping most. I do find it interesting, though, that when football is concerned brain injuries become a non-joking matter..
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supermike5alive
01/29/09

In reply to This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Football
no contact with the helmet allowed on any player... same rules for the QB for all on the field.

and go back to leather helmets. no one uses their head wearing a leather helmet.
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Kid Canada
01/29/09

In reply to This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Football
The damage affects the parts of the brain that control...hypersexuality

So I've had a concussion since I was 13?

Ladies...
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Weed Against Speed
01/29/09

In reply to This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Football
This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Football

"I learned it from watching you, Dad!"

Wait. Wrong anti-drug commercial. Carry on.
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Stev D
01/29/09

In reply to This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Football
I don't see the problem, hypersexuality and Ben Roethlisberger seems like a win-win.
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Weed Against Speed
01/29/09

In reply to This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Football
"Zombies will still find the brains of former NFL players perfectly edible, so we do have a contingency plan to deal with this - as long as a comet passes through the Earth's atmosphere or something."

-Roger Goodell
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FEAST
01/29/09

In reply to This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Football
This Is Your Brain. This Is Trent Green's Brain

fixed for accuracy
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formerly Chief Wahoo
01/29/09

In reply to This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Football
They should have showed the x-rays of Trent Green's brain:

[homepage.mac.com]
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Matt Sussman
01/29/09

In reply to This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Football
Oh, I remember watching Sesame Street. My favorite one the Encephalopagus.
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Doyle McPoyle
01/29/09

In reply to This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Football
even though most were in their 30s and 40s, all had the brain make-up of an 80-year-old man with onset dementia.

Also known as "McCarver Syndrome".
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Disco Choo
01/29/09

In reply to This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Football
This is all a load of bull. I played football for 15 years and to this day nobody makes a better Belgian waffle than my grandmother.
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Gourmet Spud
01/29/09

@Chris Ethel Berman:

You know you're wearing a suit made of Chiclets, right?
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Dany Heatley Speedwagon
01/29/09

@Chris Ethel Berman: +1 for the comment name. It works on so many levels!
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The White Boom Boom
01/29/09

In reply to This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Football
Not to poke holes in this study, but I only recignized two of those players (Webster and Strzelczyk), and both of those guys became very self destructive after retiring. Think that might have effected the research at all?
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Mr. Praline
01/29/09

@The White Boom Boom: What they're implying is that it's all related -- i.e. the self-destructive behaviour was a symptom, not a cause, of their brain damage.
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Roto_Tudor
01/29/09

@The White Boom Boom: The point is, if the hypothalamus (The deep brain they were referring to) was damaged - it would cause that self destructive behavior.
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The White Boom Boom
01/29/09

@Roto_Tudor: See, I don't know how much that holds water with me. I mean, how many other players play for years, getting hit just as hard, and don't go down these paths? Just an opinion.
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Steve U
01/29/09

@The White Boom Boom: So because there isn't a 100% incidence rate, there is no possibility of there being a correlation?
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Mr. Praline
01/29/09

@The White Boom Boom: That's exactly why the research needs to be hugely expanded. I'm sure the NFL is not a big fan of studies like this continuing to come out, and that's why there isn't a lot of impetus to keep researching it -- bad publicity. The other players may not go down these paths exactly, but I'm sure they're also suffering, in a much less publicized way (or not being in awareness of what's happening to them).
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Dashiell Bennett
01/29/09

@The White Boom Boom: Surely it's worth looking into, don't you think? Does anyone really need a doctor to convince them that getting hit in the head is not good for you?
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Kid Canada
01/29/09

@The White Boom Boom:

Well, if you've never heard of the other guys, clearly they don't matter.
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The White Boom Boom
01/29/09

@Kid Canada: I don't know if that's a bait, I just meant that I only recognized two of the names. I looked up the other ones mentioned above, and with the exception of Grimsley, they were all suicides (from what I read, Grimsley's shooting was accidental.)
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Kid Canada
01/29/09

@The White Boom Boom:

I don't know what your point is. Are you suggesting that they didn't look at enough players with a history of concussion problems that didn't either kill themselves or go on manic rages? I guess that's fair, although the anecdotal evidence even for guys like Merril Hoge, Eric Lindros, Pat Lafontaine, is pretty scary. This is from a 2000 New York Times article:

Pat LaFontaine, the former star of the Islanders who ended his career with the Buffalo Sabres and the Rangers, knows precisely what Lindros is going through. In October 1996, he suffered a concussion with the Sabres when a defenseman knocked him off his feet. He slammed his forehead into the ice and lost consciousness for several seconds.

''I really don't remember anything until sitting in the training room looking up at the TV and it was the last period,'' he recalled in a recent interview. ''My memory recall was blocked out for 45 minutes.''

It was the sixth concussion of his career. The team doctor let LaFontaine back on the ice the following week, but he could barely play. LaFontaine said he could not sleep and suffered migraines. He found he could not keep up with the play on the ice. After he soldiered through six games, he went into a team executive's office and, in his words, ''broke down.''

Neurologists determined he was suffering from the effects of multiple concussions. ''I shouldn't have been doing anything for at least three weeks,'' LaFontaine said. ''Every doctor said just be thankful you didn't get hit during those three weeks.''

It took LaFontaine six months to recover. For weeks he would not leave the house or shower. When the symptoms vanished, he said, it was as if someone plugged in a telephone line again.
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David Hume
01/29/09

I don't want to @The White Boom Boom: I don't want to further belabor this otherwise interesting and worthwhile discussion, however... The presence of similarly situated others who did not suffer the same symptoms is in many ways even more interesting and useful from an epidemiological standpoint. Most likely, there is a genetic or environmental predisposition to accelerated dementia; but for the head impacts, that switch would not get flipped. Identifying these underlying causes (structural or biochemical differences) would go a long way to helping susceptible players avoid this trauma and possibly developing treatments for those already affected.

Multi layer (soft/hard/soft) helmets would make an enormous difference, too.

/graphic joke involving midgets, a race car and a bald eagle's penis.
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MarkKelsosMigraine
01/29/09

In reply to This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Football
Andre Waters was out to sea after football. I mean, his problems ran deep.
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Mr. Praline
01/29/09

@MarkKelsosMigraine: Oceans of despair?
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DeepFriar
01/29/09

In reply to This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Football
You call that a dendrite?
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Weed Against Speed
01/29/09

In reply to This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Football
Ahh, the NFL Concussion Committee. Making the Catholic Church's approach to science appear progressive for 15 years.
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Bobby Big Wheel
01/29/09

@Weed Against Speed: CSTE is a witch!
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Quake 'n' Shake
01/29/09

@Weed Against Speed: What's with the anti-Catholicism you Protestant bastard? :-)
Actually, a better analogy would be the "research" that the tobacco industry conducts about the effects of smoking.
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Weed Against Speed
01/29/09

@Quake 'n' Shake: Touché.

Also, I'm Irish-Italian - I know all about Catholics.
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