who would you say was to blame for Ali's condition?

Isn't it something to do with the back of the neck?

A stem which leads to the brain ot something?

 

If Ali had stuck to being a sign painter, we would have lost missed out on one of the most significant figures of the last century.

 

its the slow irreversible and initially undetectable detioration of pathways between areas just behind your forehead and further back, which run to that stem yes.
once its detected its too late to sort out, and cant be detected till its too late, only can be slowed.

makes it really difficult to treat (possibly useful drugs often don't cross blood-brain barrier easily), and impossible to operate on from what I know cos you know you cant chop up the brain

really horrible shyte.

 

If I remember correctly, the substancia nigra is a part of the brain associated with the cerebellum that produces dopamine, which is a major neurotransmitter and is largely responsible for opiate highs. If you damage it through trauma (to the back of the head) it affects dopamine production in turn causing Parkinson's.

This is separate from being "punch drunk" which is mainly frontal lobe damage caused by the cerebrum rebounding and slamming into the front of skull from punches to the face. These people have issues with higher order operations like speech and impulse control.

A person with Parkinson's will have normal cognition but having depression is basically part of the package, caused by the actual lack of dopamine in addition to self awareness.



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This was true. I do recall Tjm witherspoon saying that during sparring Ali wanted him to hit ali in the head to toughen him up for the blows in actual combat, and furthermore I remember Ali saying it himself.

 

Good post.

 

I've seen a lot of videos of Ali sparring without headgear. What was the point in that??

 

Jowcool you are preaching to the choir. As I mentioned, our understanding of traumatic brain injuries has expanded mightily over the last couple of decades.Ali came from a different era relying on traditional training practices. I can recall Ali being critical of the Rocky movies because of the sequences in which Rocky trains with weights. If you watch the documentary covering his fight with Larry Holmes in which spine partners are hammering away at his body.

When preparing for major fights he accumulated countless sparring rounds. Sparring could often be even more damaging do to accumulated sweat it would build up in the gloves making them much heavier comma also headgear off and gave one defaults sense of security regarding brain damage.