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McKee is a world expert on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a progressive degenerative disease similar to Alzheimer's in its symptoms – memory loss, irritability, mood changes – but with its own distinct pathology. The disease has long been recognised: it was first described in 1928 and for many years was thought to be confined to boxers, hence the name "punch drunk" syndrome or "dementia pugilistica". But in the past three years, largely as a result of the work of McKee's brain bank, it has come to be seen as a danger to anyone who suffers repetitive concussions.
McKee begins her examination of the unidentified football star's brain by turning it in her surgically gloved hands with the tender concentration of a fruit-lover inspecting a pineapple. "It's too small for an adult male's brain," she says. "There's shrinkage pretty much throughout the brain."
Using a long knife, she cuts the organ sideways – from ear to ear, as it were – so that the front half is separated from the back. The sliced surface glistens under the morgue's neon lighting.
The dissection reveals three huge holes in the brain – one large triangle right in the centre of the brain, and two ovals parallel to each other at the base. It is apparent that McKee, who has studied more athletes' brains than probably any other person, is shocked by what she sees.
"This is an extreme case," she says, "but it is also very characteristic." She points to the triangular hole, consisting of the lateral ventricles, and says it clearly shows "tremendous disruption". There should be a membrane separating the two ventricles, but it has been so battered by the footballer's repeated blows to the head that only the thinnest of filaments is left. The two oval holes are the ventricles of the temporal lobe and they too are extremely enlarged to compensate for tissue lost from the lobes themselves, another classic sign of having your head bashed repeatedly. "The temporal lobes are crucial to memory and learning and you can see they are very, very small, as miniaturised as possible."
McKee takes a deep look at the cross-section of this brain and momentarily appears sad. "This is a brain at the end-stage of disease," she says. "I would assume that with this amount of damage the person was very cognitively impaired. I would assume they were demented, had substantial problems with their speech and gait, that this person was Parkinsonian, was slow to speak and walk, if he could walk at all."