Concussion
Peter Landesman, , Concussion.
Culver City, CA:
Sony Pictures Entertainment,
2015.
Introduction
Based upon true events, the plot of the 2015 multi-award-winning film Concussion outlines the discovery of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in deceased Hall-of-Fame American Football player and Pittsburg Steelers’ legend, Mike Webster (Omalu et al., 2005; Omalu, 2017). On 24 September 2002, Webster died of a cardiac arrest aged just 50 years. Recognising that elite athletes should not be suffering from such severe cognitive decline at 50-years of age, newly qualified neuropathologist Bennet Omalu (played by Will Smith) examined Webster’s brain. Omalu found further evidence of a unique structuring of tau proteins in the micro-pathology of the brain’s structures (Omalu et al., 2005). Although CTE was not new in 2005, initially seen in boxers (Martland, 1928), it was the first documentation of such pathology from team sports, particularly American Football (Nowinski, 2012). Initially named as CTE in the 1960s by Miller (1966), it grew in prominence after the subsequent autopsies in American Football (Omalu et al., 2005, 2006), which Concussion is based upon.
