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Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a neurodegenerative disease correlated with collision sports.

CTE has an insidious onset, evolving into four stages, from mild mood changes to Alzheimer's-like dementia.

It can only be diagnosed post-mortem but can be suspected in athletes based on symptoms and sport history.

There is no cure, but CTE-type symptoms can be treated, making screening for potential CTE cases essential.

A perusal of the recent news will reveal headlines pertaining to football players’ brain trauma and a corollary degenerative brain disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. CTE is highly correlated with collision sports, particularly football and boxing, where athletes are most prone to numerous head-jarring impacts. It may sound familiar because it made the news in 2017 when researchers examined the brain of former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez. Convicted of murder and serving a life sentence, Hernandez died by suicide and his brain was donated to Boston University’s CTE Center.

Researchers at Boston University reported to the press that they found Hernandez’s CTE to be the worst case they had seen in a young individual (Barlow, 2019). As an aside, no one has ever singled out CTE as the cause of Hernandez’s criminal behavior, as he had a complicated early family dynamic and significant substance abuse history, both of which shape one’s personality and behaviors.

Neurodegenerative dynamics of CTE

The condition is known to cause significant dysfunction in the amygdala, hippocampus and thalamus—brain regions that support memory, emotion and behavior (John et al., 2025). The frontal lobes, which are involved in numerous cognitive processes including attention and executive functioning, are also affected (McKee at al., 2013).

CTE made the news most recently because it was reported in the British Medical Journal (Daneshvar, August 2026) that one in four former NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021, a period when brain donation was most frequent, showed CTE upon examination. What is more alarming is that the researchers reported it is likely more common. As a progressive disease, it may silently creep for years, feasibly beginning in youth and college collision sports players. Famed CTE........

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