Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Research Paper

My name is Dr. Bennet Omalu, and with the help of fellow neuropathologist Dr. Julian Bailes, I have identified the first clinical evidence of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. For many years, my work has been ridiculed. Some have called it “voodoo,” because many do not believe that a man from Nigeria, of all places, could know anything about football. And they are correct. I do not know much about football, but what I do know about is head trauma.

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, otherwise known as CTE, was discovered by my partner and me back in 2002. Found in athletes with a history repetitive brain trauma, it is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain. Unfortunately, diagnosis of CTE requires a sample of the brain tissue, so it

may only be diagnosed once a patient is deceased.

This is an incredibly serious condition. Common symptoms in suspected CTE suspects include memory loss, impaired judgement, aggression, depression, as well as dementia. The condition has been confirmed to be linked to the deaths of Tom McHale, Dave Duerson and sixteen other former NFL players. These are only the confirmed numbers, so there may be many, many more.

Althouh my team and I have made enormous progress, research on the correlation of head trauma and football must be studied further. There is still a long way to go before we can completely understand Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, and even further until we can discover a way to keep America’s football players safe.