Researchers believe they now have the first case of a living person identified with chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE.
Dr. Bennet Omalu, the lead author of the study, told CNN the unnamed person in the report was former NFL player Fred McNeill. McNeill died of ALS in November 2015 at the age of 63.
Omalu, who is the doctor credited with finding CTE in football players, first made the determination in 2012 by using a brain scan that can trace a signature protein of CTE called tau.
Until the case study was published in "Neurosurgery" this week, the only way to confirm CTE was to examine the brain after death. In September, Boston University researchers said they had discovered a new biomarker for CTE that “may allow the disease to be diagnosed during life for the first time.”
Fred McNeill, who died in 2015, spent 12 seasons in the NFL as a linebacker for the Vikings.
(NFL Photos/NFL Photos via AP)Omalu showed his findings to CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta in 2016. Gupta spoke to McNeill's wife, Tia, and his two sons, Gavin and Fred Jr., who talked about how their father went from "fun loving family man" to someone dealing with memory loss, anger and depression.
"There are some times where the father is the stronghold in the family, or the anchor. If you lose that, everything kind of falls apart. That's kind of what happened for us. It looked like financial issues at first; it looked like marital issues, and they separated; then it looked like just depression," Gavin said.
McNeill spent 12 seasons in the NFL as a linebacker for the Vikings from 1974-1985.
Dr. Bennet Omalu is the doctor credited with finding CTE in football players.
(Ida Mae Astute/ABC via Getty Images)CTE has been referred to as football's "concussion crisis," as researchers say it is caused by repeated blows to the head. The disease has been known to cause symptoms that are similar to those seen in Alzheimer's patients such as memory loss, mood swings, rage and suicidal thoughts.
The technology Omalu used on McNeill has been used on over a dozen other former NFL players, like former Cowboy Tony Dorsett. However, McNeill is the first case to be confirmed with an autopsy.
Omalu and his team of researchers are currently looking to raise money to move on to a phase 3 clinical trial to further test the technology and possibly replicate what they found in McNeill.
The doctor told CNN a commercial test could be available in "less than five years."
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