Head Trauma: NFL Encourages Players To Donate Brains For Research

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The National Football League, or NFL, will encourgae its former and current players to donate their brains for head trauma research. In partnership with Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, NFL is making an unprecedented move to ask its players to donate their brains after death for head trauma study. The fact that the NFL, whose stance on concussions has always been criticized, is the one encouraging players to donate their brains appears to be the league's first effort to acknowledge the problem. Moreover, the league's spokesperson said the NFL will donate $1 million to the research center. Active players will also be encouraged to participate in brain studies. NFL used to underplay research findings linking sports related concussions with brain damage.

But, the league seems to have had a change of mind after a recent hearing that bashed NFL's attitude toward brain science. 

Concussions are very common-place in high-contact sports, but are sport leagues open enough about the consequences that concussions can have for players? Concussions are treatable, but need time to heal. Symptoms go away within weeks. But, repeated and untreated concussions can cause cumulative brain damage such as dementia pugilistica or severe complications such as second-impact syndrome.

The awareness seems to be on the rise as more and more players are getting sidelined with head injuries. NFL is moving toward introducing guidelines that will see each player who suffers a concussion being examined by an independent neurologist, whereas before players could have been returned onto the field or into training unrecovered. The National Hockey League, or NHL, seems to have taken the lead on recognizing the need to take concussions seriously. Its players have been examined by independent brain doctors for years now. NHL players are not usually allowed to go back to play until they are completely healed.

But, is football the only sport in which the problem is rampant? There have been studies suggesting soccer players should start wearing helmets to help protect their brains on head-to-head collisions. There is a study that says 27% of soccer players have had a concussion that caused them to pass out and 22 % had between two and five concussions. There are also allegations that adolescent soccer players who don't strap on protective headgear are nearly twice as likely to suffer head injuries. And, yet international soccer is far from adapting helmets as part of the regular game gear, likely because it would ruin the sex appeal of the sport. Same applies in basketball. It just would not feel and look the same, would it? What about gymnastics, figure skating and pole jumping?

Are leagues and sport federations throughout the world ready to put the health of their athletes in jeopardy for the sake of keeping the sleek look and achieving even greater television audiences?