87% of brains of football players showed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy

A new study shows that the vast majority of former football players whose brains were donated for research showed signs of severe trauma, reinforcing the dramatic toll the sport can take on its participants.

The report in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 87% of the 202 donated brains of former high school, college, semiprofessional and pro football players showed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a progressive neurodegenerative disease caused by repetitive head trauma. Of the former NFL players in the sample, 110 of the 111 brains showed symptoms of the disease.

“The fact that we found it in 99% of individuals who donated their brain is a frightening statistic,” said Ann McKee, a neuropathologist at the Boston University CTE Center, which sponsored the study along with the VA Boston Healthcare System…

Source: Study Shows Toll on Brain in Former Football Players – WSJ