Dr. Julian Bailes and Dr. Bennet Omalu of the Brain Injury Research Institute at West Virginia University have performed a microscopic tissue analysis of the brain of former Bengals receiver Chris Henry, who died in late 2009 after falling out of a truck driven by his fiancee. The project commenced at the request of Henry’s family, and Bailes and Omalu will present their findings on Monday, at noon.
And their findings will include a specific conclusion that Henry’s brain showed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
“We would have been very happy if the results had been negative, but
multiple areas of Chris Henry’s brain showed CTE,” Dr. Bailes told Peter Keating of ESPN The Magazine.
Dr. Bailes also thinks that Henry’s emotional volatility arose from CTE. “I think it did,” Dr. Bailes said. “Superimposed on the acute brain injuries
Chris suffered when he died, there was fairly extensive damage
throughout his brain that was fully consistent with CTE. This syndrome
is expressed not only as changes in the brain, but clinically, as
behavioral changes. And starting with Mike Webster, we have seen common
threads in these cases: emotional disturbances, depression, failed
personal relationships and businesses, suicidal thoughts, sometimes
alcohol or drug use.”
If accurate, the question becomes when did Henry first develop CTE? Anyone who followed his college career realizes that Henry periodically displayed “emotional volatility” before he landed in the NFL. And he played in only 55 career professional games, with a mere dozen starts.
Besides, Henry played a position that typically doesn’t result in the kind of repetitive raps to the noggin that players like Webster, a 17-year Hall of Fame center, absorbed. Other deceased players whose brains showed evidence of CTE — safety Andre Waters and linemen Terry Long and Justin Strelczyk — played position involving far more hits to the head.
Though receivers like Al Toon and Wayne Chrebet suffered multiple concussions to the point where they missed games and ultimately retired prematurely, their struggles were known. Henry, based on our recollection and research, never missed any games due to concussions. (Of course, this doesn’t mean Henry didn’t suffer any concussions at the NFL, college, or high school level.)
So we think that the project should now take on two additional questions: (1) do players already arrive at the NFL level with CTE?; and (2) are there any other factors that may be causing it?
Dr. Bailes seems to recognize this possibility. “I don’t want to imply that this is an [NFL]-only phenomenon,” Dr. Bailes tells Alan Schwarz of the New York Times. Bailes now wonders whether the foundation for CTE is laid “while the brain is young
and vulnerable,” and then suffers an injury.
“Players spend 17 years banging heads in the pros on every play and you
think it’s exposure based,” Dr. Bailes said. “Now with Chris Henry being so
young, we have to rethink that.”
Though Dr. Bailes and Dr. Omalu have blazed a new path via the discovery of CTE, the iceberg whose tip they have discovered could be far more extensive and complicated than anyone currently realizes. The evidence that CTE has been found in the brain of the player who had limited time in the NFL at a position involving fewer blows to the head seems to suggest that this particular rabbit hole runs a lot deeper than anyone realizes — and that it may take more than a few unexpected turns on the way to Albuquerque.