By James Caldwell, PWTorch assistant editor

Update: The Associated Press reports that WWE's $1.2 million donation to the Sports Legacy Institute is earmarked for diagnosing the brain disease CTE in living people.

Presently, brain damage research has only been available on deceased individuals.

The AP reported: "The center is studying how to diagnose CTE in living people, a critical step toward clinical trials in humans. The WWE gift will fund a new investigation to screen potential CTE treatments."

Sports Legacy's Chris Nowinski told the Torch in December 2009 that "there is still a ways to go before we can slow, stop, or reverse the disease." Nowinski also said three-and-a-half-years ago that drugs to treat the disease were in development, but only had a slight chance of working based on their research at the time and were probably 3-5 years away from being tested.

Original Story May 16

WWE will donate $1.2 million to head-related injury research, reports USA Today. The gift will be delivered to former WWE wrestler Chris Nowinski's Sports Legacy Institute over a period of three years.

"Obviously, I think it's such a huge concern for everybody right now in sports and in the military," said WWE executive/wrestler Paul Levesque (Triple H. "As we learn more and more about concussions and what can become of it, I think it's a problem for every body."

Also contained in the USA Today report:

- Triple H claimed that there were 11 concussion instances in 2012, down from 25 concussion instances involving full-time wrestlers in 2011.

- Triple H commented on Dolph Ziggler's recent "serious concussion" that put him out of the Extreme Rules PPV on Sunday: "He got hit with an errant kick that was supposed to be in the chest, and somebody zigged when they should have zagged, and he got hit on the chin." It captures WWE viewing Jack Swagger's kick to Ziggler's head as an accident, which is why Swagger has not been punished for the kick to Ziggler's head.

- Triple H commented on WWE removing chair shots to the head. "We still hit people with metal chairs, just not in the head anymore," Hunter said. "We took out the things that caused the most concussions and the most head impacts."

- Regarding training future stars in NXT Developmental, Hunter said WWE has "modified its training and maneuvers to curtail blows to the head."

[ LINK: Report here at USAToday.com - http://usat.ly/13rCISj ]

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