Mr Brown said Hunter had suffered countless head knocks and concussions over his life.<\/p>\n
While he was medically retired from the AFL due to a chronic shoulder injury in 2009, he continued playing football until the day he died.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A 21-year-old Adam Hunter, bandaged and battered, after losing the 2002 elimination final. (Getty Images: Robert Cianflone)<\/p>\n
“When you see your son run onto the football field and within five minutes he’s on the stretcher being carried off shaking and convulsing, it’s pretty upsetting,” Mr Brown said.<\/p>\n
He said they asked Hunter to consider hanging up his boots but “it was always ‘just one more year'”.<\/p>\n
Mrs Brown said her son figured it was too late for him and he may as well keep playing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Joanne and Rod Brown hope Hunter’s brain donation will help other players by advancing CTE research. (ABC South West WA: Bridget McArthur)<\/p>\n
However, the ASBB, which examined Hunter’s brain, said CTE risk was more closely linked to how long someone had played a contact sport, rather than the number of concussions they sustained.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We just hope that something can come out of the [brain] donations … [and] it can help young players in the future to find a cure before it kills them,” Mrs Brown said.<\/p>\n
Inquiries into the circumstances surrounding Hunter’s death are ongoing, but preliminary coronial findings indicate he died from methylamphetamine-related heart failure.<\/p>\n
Do you have a story you want to share with the ABC? Contact Bridget McArthur at bridgetmcarthurtips@proton.me<\/a>. If you’re sharing sensitive information, read our tips on how to contact us confidentially<\/a>.<\/p>\n CTE symptoms and subtypes<\/p>\n An examination of Hunter’s brain revealed several lesions consistent with stage II CTE, classed as low stage.<\/p>\n ASBB founder and associate professor Michael Buckland said symptoms included anxiety, depression, rage and poor impulse control.<\/p>\n “Many families tell us that their loved one sought some relief through drugs or alcohol,” he said.<\/p>\n The examination also identified potential evidence of cortical-sparing CTE, classed as high stage.<\/p>\n Michael Buckland founded the Australian Sports Brain Bank, which researches CTE in sportspeople. (ABC News: Jak Rowland)<\/p>\n According to the ASBB, people with cortical-sparing CTE are less likely to experience dementia and severe cognitive difficulties but more likely to have early-onset behavioural and movement issues, compared to people with typical high-stage CTE.<\/p>\n Dr Buckland, a senior pathologist, said the subtype had only recently been discovered.<\/p>\n “We don’t know a lot about it yet but it does appear to occur in about 10 per cent of cases,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n “It seems that in those cases people have more mental-health-type issues rather than the thinking and planning issues.”<\/p>\n Dr Buckland said it was not yet clear why it only presented in a minority of people.<\/p>\n Hopes for living diagnosis<\/p>\n It is still relatively early days for CTE research.\u00a0<\/p>\n The ASBB was the first medical institute to identify the disease in an AFL player’s brain.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n