This isn’t a well defined question, I don’t think. However, when Junior Seau died, his brain was studied at Boston University to confirm ge suffered from CTE. When professional wrestler Daffney Unger did her last stream - and please do not go looking for it - she repeated the phrase “my brain goes straight to Boston” to emphasize her last wish was to have her brain studied for signs of CTE.
Is there similar work being done in the structure of brains of people who died in similar ways but who weren’t sufferers of CTE? If I wanted to study the brains of people in the position of, say, Robin Williams, is that a defined field? (I know he is known to have suffered from Lewy body dementia but as I recall that wasn’t discovered until after his death. My question is if there’s anyone studying the brains of those who died by their own hand.)
Exactly so. It’s a degenerative brain disease, linked to repeated head trauma. It’s associated with participating in sports which can inflict traumatic brain injuries (TBI) – both concussions and subconcussive brain trauma – to their participants, including gridiron football, ice hockey and martial arts, as well as association football (soccer), though in that case, the head trauma is often from “heading” the ball. It’s also associated with military veterans, primarily due to proximity to explosions or arms fire.
It’s also a disease which currently cannot be definitively diagnosed except with an autopsy.
And, the OP is referring to research on CTE which is being done at the Boston University CTE Center; they are the U.S. researchers which conduct many of the examinations of the brains of deceased individuals (including football players) who suspected that they might be suffering from the disease, due to cognitive and emotional issues they were suffering while still alive.
Heres a paper on the neurobiological findings of suicide victims. I haven’t read it though, so not sure whats in it.
On a hopeful note, the NFL player Joe Namath said he was able to reverse a lot of the CTE damage done to his brain with hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
To evaluate Namath, Fox used a SPECT scan, a nuclear-imaging test that shows blood flow in the brain. The results were shocking: Red, orange and yellow images lit up on the right side of Namath’s brain, showing normal activity, but the left side was largely dark.
After 40 dives in Jupiter’s chambers, there was a dramatic change in Namath’s SPECT scans: They looked bright and symmetrical. He underwent 120 treatments, and a year later there was still renewed blood flow on both sides of his brain. His cognitive tests improved too. And he felt generally stronger. “The areas of the brain which had decreased activity on the pre-scan now are actually functioning normally,” Fox says. “And you can see the results are durable.”
“It signals to me that I’ve been helped,” Namath says, looking at his brain scans one afternoon. “I know I’m thankful.” So thankful that he decided to give his name to the Joe Namath Neurological Research Center, which launched in September 2014 with Fox and Miskin as co-directors.
It does sound hopeful, but my understanding is that there is no way to definitively diagnose CTE in a living person (diagnosis requires a postmortem examination of the brain). The article notes that Namath had been dealing with cognitive issues, and likely did suffer concussions and TBI during his playing career, which would suggest the possibility of CTE, but it can’t be said for certain while he’s still alive.