For so long, Ryan Hoffman had the same explanation for his inability to get his life on track.
“Something is wrong with my brain,” said Hoffman, a former offensive lineman at the University of North Carolina who ended up a panhandler, homeless, penniless and dependent on drugs and alcohol.
Last week, his family learned that Hoffman, who was 41 when he died in November, was right.
Researchers at Boston University and the Concussion Legacy Foundation on Friday notified Hoffman’s family that an analysis of his brain showed evidence of CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease believed to be caused by repeated hits to the head.