CTE

Every article we have published on CTE, newest first.

WHAT THE STUDY ACTUALLY SAYS

Memory loss was the most common deficit in NFL players with confirmed CTE

In 33 former players with autopsy-confirmed disease, memory, executive-function and language impairments were frequent before death, and greater tau burden tracked worse memory.

3 min read

WHAT THE STUDY ACTUALLY SAYS

A quarter of NFL players who died had CTE. Or almost all of them did.

The range is the finding, not a failure of the study. 1,712 former players died between 2008 and 2021; 338 brains were examined, and who donates a brain is not random.

4 min read

WHAT THE STUDY ACTUALLY SAYS

CTE in 2026: what the new evidence established, and what it still cannot

A 614-donor autopsy study tied advanced CTE to dementia independently of other brain disease. A separate imaging report in three former athletes hints at a test for the living. The caveats on both are heavy.

4 min read

WHAT THE STUDY ACTUALLY SAYS

A military brain bank found no definitive CTE among 163 donors

A decade-on review of chronic traumatic encephalopathy research reports that 5 of 70 veteran donors had features of the pathology and none met the full definition. A small UK rugby study looks elsewhere.

4 min read

WHAT THE STUDY ACTUALLY SAYS

Neurons in CTE carry mutation patterns seen in Alzheimer's. Head impacts alone did not

Sequencing hundreds of single neurons from 15 donors with CTE and 4 with repetitive head impacts but no CTE, researchers found the genomic damage tracked the disease, not the exposure.

4 min read