The brain of former boxer Maguila was donated for studies. The body is now part of the only national bank designed to study neurological diseases in Brazil belonging to the University of São Paulo (USP). The procedure was carried out after the wake held this Friday (25).
“We decided while he was still alive to donate his brain for studies due to the disease. We did this yesterday (24)”, said Irani Pinheiro, widow of the former boxer, during the funeral ceremony of Maguila.
For the neurologist who took care of the health of the national sports idol, Renato Anghinah, the gesture can contribute to the evolution of studies on the disease that affected Maguila, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative condition associated with repetitive trauma to the head, common in contact sports .
“The donation will enable studies that can find mechanisms to mitigate the disease or, eventually, even find ways to cure it”
Renato Anghinah, neurologist
Maguila’s gesture for science follows the same act of two other Brazilian athletes: the player Bellini, captain of the Brazilian team in its first world championship in 1958, and fellow boxer, Éder Jofre.
The brains of the three athletes are in the national bank, which is managed by the Laboratory of Pathophysiology in Aging (Gerolab), at the Faculty of Medicine of USP, with more than two thousand organs to study neurological diseases .
“Having a sample to compare the diagnosis made in life and, after death, allows us to explore other aspects and evaluate whether the clinical diagnosis in life is consistent with the posthumous diagnosis. In diseases such as CTE and Alzheimer’s, we have an agreement of more than 80% between the clinical diagnosis and the diagnosis after death”, says Anghinah in an interview with CNN .
Maguila revealed the disease to society in 2018, but, according to the neurologist, the athlete had already intended to donate since learning about the importance of studying diseases like his.
Furthermore, the country is currently able to study the brain with national technology, whereas previously the organ had to be sent to leading foreign universities.
The neurologist explains the procedure for donating the organ: “The entire body is taken to the SVO (Death Verification Service), where a technician carefully removes the brain, without leaving visible marks. This brain remains in a chemical substance for a few days to be fixed, as it is similar to gelatin, it needs to harden and then be cut into thin sheets that can be examined under microscopes.”
This content was originally published in Cérebro de Maguila and is donated to studies on diseases caused by scams on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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