A degenerative brain disease (chronic traumatic encephalopathy – CTE) has been detected in the brains of nearly 200 football players after death, and the suspected cause is repeated head blows, an almost unavoidable part of contact sports.
The disease was found in the brains of football players at the youth, college and professional level, all donated post-mortem to a Boston brain bank. A previous report had described the disease in an 18-year-old football player, but finding additional cases at the high school level raises new questions about the game’s safety for young players.
Researchers take a look at what’s known — and what still needs to be learned — about the condition.
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