What Happens To a Football Player's Neurons? 176
An anonymous reader writes "It seems like every week there's a new story about the consequences of all those concussions experienced by football players and other athletes — just a few days ago, the NY Times reported that some athletes diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease may actually have a neural disease brought on by head trauma. But missing in these stories is an explanation of what head trauma actually does to the brain cells. Now Carl Zimmer has filled in the gap with a column that takes a look at how neurons respond to stress, and explains how stretching a neuron's axon turns its internal structure into 'mush.'"
Interesting... (Score:5, Funny)
.........I didn't know athletes/footballers had neurons.
Re:Don't forget about their scrotums. (Score:5, Funny)
This thread is worthless without pics!
feh (Score:3, Funny)
Handegg (Score:2, Funny)
An effeminate version of rugby.
Re:Don't forget about their scrotums. (Score:1, Funny)
I take it that you have inspected the reproductive organs on many professional athletes using steroids and found them somewhat deficient?
Re:American Football is not Football (Score:5, Funny)
True. A medical story regarding non-American Football would likely cover one of these topics instead:
1. How a nudge to the shoulder can translate into a compound leg fracture.
2. How grabbing your shin while writhing on the ground can partially alleviate the pain of a compound leg fracture.
3. Whatever is in those magical spray cans the trainers carry around, and how they can instantly heal a compound leg fracture immediately after a penalty has been awarded.
Re:The amount of replies to this story (Score:2, Funny)
Everybody knows that the only healthy thing you can do is to sit at a desk with a computer for 50 years!!
Re:American Football is not Football (Score:4, Funny)
And while there's contact all the time, soccer players are too fast/agile to do much damage.
Not really, it's just that football players are miraculous creatures, their bodies heal amazingly fast. Have you seen the number of times Ronaldo has had a fracture and been rolling around the ground in pain, and been up and running a minute later? Amazing.