The shooting in a Midtown Manhattan skyscraper this summer left the city still in shock.
Shane Tamura, a 27‑year‑old former high‑school football player, opened fire at the NFL’s Park Avenue headquarters. He killed NYPD Officer Didarul Islam and three bystanders, then ended his own life. In a suicide note, Tamura wrote that “chronic traumatic encephalopathy destroyed my mind.”
A CTE diagnosis is almost impossible to confirm before death. The city’s chief medical examiner said the brain he found held “unambiguous diagnostic evidence” of CTE, a degenerative disease linked to repeated head trauma. It can trigger violent mood swings, dementia, and suicidal thoughts.
Doctors caution that a CTE finding does not prove it caused Tamura’s actions. Dr. Brent Masel of the University of Texas said, “It could be a factor. But it didn’t necessarily cause this tragedy.” And he added that post‑mortem abnormalities don’t automatically mean a person truly had the syndrome.
CTE symptoms vary widely. Some people suffer depression, anxiety and memory loss without any violence. Others experience sudden anger or temper.
One family illustrates this range. Molly from the West Coast says her husband, who was diagnosed with probable stage‑2 CTE at 19, “has a quick temper” and will often curse at people. They have taught their children to recognize his headaches and give him space before he’s upset.
Molly’s husband survived a high‑school football career full of concussions. After years of migraines and intermittent memory lapses, Molly urged him to seek help. A neurologist confirmed a likely CTE diagnosis, and the couple even watched the 2015 film “Concussion,” which dramatized Dr. Bennet Omalu’s fight to prove the disease’s existence.
The story of CTE’s reach outside of football is remembered through the late NFL star Ralph Wenzel. He played eight years for the Steelers and Chargers, then developed early‑onset dementia at 56. After he died in 2012, brain tissue tests confirmed CTE. His wife, Eleanor Perfetto, joined the Brain Injury Association of America and has become a voice for families affected by the disease.
CTE is still a mystery because it is only diagnosable after death, for now. Fortunately, research is accelerating. Dr. Michael Alosco of Boston University is leading a $15 million National Institutes of Health study that seeks biomarkers—measurable signs in the body—that could reveal CTE in living people. His team is testing brain‑imaging techniques, such as positron emission tomography (PET), to spot abnormal tau protein, a hallmark of CTE.
The ultimate goal is early detection. If officials can spot CTE during a patient’s life—ideally in stage 1—families could better plan for the future, from medical care to financial arrangements.
“Detecting CTE in a living person would change everything,” Dr. Neil Vasdev from Canada’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) said. Navari describes the progress as hopeful, but reminds that a diagnosis is only the first step. What comes next will be crucial: new treatment protocols and ways to manage symptoms.
CTE research relies on one of the world’s largest brain banks. The Boston University CTE Center, under Dr. Ann McKee’s leadership, houses 1,500+ donated brains, many from former athletes, boxers and military veterans who sustained repetitive head hits. The data have helped scientists map the distinctive tau‑tangle pattern that destroys memory, mood and impulse control.
Still, most data come from male American football players. “We need to study both men and women, and diverse types of head injuries,” CamH’s director, Dr. Vasdev, argues. The NFL’s updated concussion protocols and stricter helmet‑to‑helmet rules are steps in the right direction, but the push for a living CTE test is the next frontier.
Experts project that within the next five years, diagnoses will become more reliable and, hopefully, treatments will follow. “We’ll be able to build on diagnostic abilities and work toward treatments,” Masel says.
For families like Perfetto’s and Molly’s, any progress offers relief. They remember the happier moments before CTE’s decline and hope that knowing their loved ones early could help them cope and plan. As more people become aware of CTE’s risks—beyond the NFL—the world may finally answer why a brain disease that can kill a shooter still hides in the shadows.
Source: New York Post
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