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Ohio State football player showed no signs of a brain disease - coroner

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - An Ohio State football player who committed suicide last year did not show signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease sometimes found in athletes with repetitive brain trauma, a coroner's report said on Friday. Kosta Karageorge, 22, a non-scholarship reserve defensive lineman in his first year on the football team, had been reported missing several days before he was found dead in Columbus, Ohio, with a gunshot wound to the head in late November. "There is no evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy but there are nonspecific findings consistent with subacute to remote prior concussive injury," the Franklin County Coroner's office said in a statement. The coroner listed the cause of death as suicide from a penetrating gunshot wound to the head. His mother had told police Karageorge, who also wrestled for Ohio State, suffered several concussions and had been confused at times. Karageorge's death raised questions about whether physicians and athletic trainers properly treated the player, and whether they had noticed any lingering effects of head trauma. (Reporting by Kim Palmer; Writing by Jon Herskovitz and Mohammad Zargham)