CTE: From ‘punch drunk’ to today, how this devastating disease is finally being taken seriously

Tiny Matters

*A disclaimer that there will be discussions of self harm in this episode* In 2003, Chris Nowinski found himself in a WWE wrestling ring, concussed and not remembering where he was or how he was supposed to finish the match. This would be a pivotal moment not just in his life but for an entire field of research on a neurodegenerative disease long known to exist but poorly defined and even censored: chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE.
There’s evidence that people knew about CTE — which went by names like “punch drunk” — starting in the 1920s, but it wasn’t until the 2000s, when American football players began being diagnosed with CTE post-mortem, that the disease started gaining public traction. Many of those football players, including Andre Waters, had died by suicide. Chris, now a behavioral neuroscientist and the co-founder and CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, pushed to get the brains of Waters and other athletes tested, and began spreading awareness and putting pressure on organizations like the NFL to acknowledge the devastation this disease can bring to athletes and their families.
Today on the show we will cover what’s known about CTE and how to prevent it, and how researchers are trying to find ways of diagnosing it in people who are still alive and working to find treatments.
Here are some good CTE resources:
https://concussionfoundation.org/CTE-resources/support
https://www.bu.edu/cte/resources/resources-for-families/

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Kapitel

1. CTE: From ‘punch drunk’ to today, how this devastating disease is finally being taken seriously (00:00:00)

2. Chris Nowinski finds himself delirious in the ring (00:00:01)

3. 'Punch drunk' (00:03:00)

4. What is CTE? (00:03:58)

5. Chris meets Robert Cantu, who upends everything he thinks he knows about concussion (00:12:13)

6. Andre Waters dies by suicide and CTE enters public awareness (00:18:35)

7. Athletes pledge to donate their brains after they die (00:23:01)

8. Important work to prevent, diagnose, and treat CTE is being done by the Boston University CTE center (00:26:19)

9. Tiny show and tell: Bacteria-filled microwaves and the (new!) biggest animal genome (00:34:51)