Was Junior Seau's apparent suicide brain-injury related?

[joeybee12]

Former NFL star Junior Seau’s death on Wednesday is fueling debate over whether football’s big hits leave some players with lingering brain damage that can lead to depression and possibly even suicide.

The police have yet to determine whether the 43-year-old linebacker did, in fact, commit suicide. But because his death follows so closely on the heels of two high-profile suicides in former NFL defensive backs, many are wondering if the concussions Seau sustained during his 20 years as a hard-hitting star, known mostly for his stint with the San Diego Chargers, including the 1994 Super Bowl team, were implicated in his death.

In February 2011, former Chicago Bear Dave Duerson committed suicide at age 50, choosing to shoot himself in the chest so that scientists could look for signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a brain disease linked to head blows that can culminate in dementia and other symptoms. And just last month, former Atlanta Falcon Ray Easterling, who had sued the NFL for mismanaging players’ concussions, shot and killed himself at age 62.

Experts interviewed by msnbc.com were mixed in their opinions on whether Seau’s concussions could have led to his apparent suicide. All agreed that there should be more research on the impact of head injuries on the risk for depression and suicide.

http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/03/11522115-was-junior-seaus-apparent-suicide-brain-injury-related?lite

[Auggie]

1. Autopsy

The family should okay it

[TZ]

2. Im one of those people

who wonder if he shot himself in the chest because he wanted an intact brain for study, like Dave Duerson.

[Auggie]

3. Me too

[ScreamingMeemie]

4. Unfortunately, with suicides, you never get an answer.

[madinmaryland]

6. In my post below, all of us got a letter of some sort from him.

He had left a package behind for all of his closest friends, which his brother distributed to everyone at the funeral. He was deeply troubled.

ETA: He and his wife helped bring my wife and I together nearly 20 years ago.

[ScreamingMeemie]

7. With my husband, my father in law, and his father we will never know.

Even though we try to surmise. My father in law was an alcoholic. Many believe that was an underlying cause. His death certificate says depression, which was never diagnosed. My husband? I will die a thousand deaths with him because I will never know.

[madinmaryland]

8. It was kind of eerie...

He wrote the letter on the wedding card I have given to he and his wife at their wedding eighteen years earlier. I am still trying to figure out how he found it, other than his wife had left it behind after she and their son moved out.

Now I am starting to wonder if my wife has saved all of that stuff. Probably!

[ScreamingMeemie]

9. I would imagine so. I have kept every card, invitation etc.

Wives are like that sometimes. Although, in my husband's top dresser drawer, were all of the cards I had ever given him...going back to when we were teenagers.

[madinmaryland]

5. My best friend took his life a couple of years ago. He had never played football, but

he exhibited many of the same symptoms as Seau. He had been in an auto accident five years before, where he had been knocked out for an unknown duration of time, which he never got treatment for. The next five years of his life were a downward spiral through various medications, drug addiction, domestic issues and divorce, which culminated in his suicide.

I spoke to him less than 18 hours before he took his life, and he seemed normal, but he had obviously been planning it. He also burned down a good portion of the home they had lived in. No one else was involved.