3 in 4 Former NFL Players Had Brain Disease CTE, Landmark Study Finds

About three in four former NFL players who died between 2008 and 2023 had the degenerative brain disease CTE, according to a landmark new study published on October 28 in the journal JAMA Network Open. The Boston University-led research is the first to estimate CTE prevalence across the whole population of deceased former players, rather than only among brains donated for study.

Earlier studies found CTE in almost every donated NFL brain examined — but that picture was skewed, because families were far more likely to donate a brain when the player had shown symptoms in life. To correct for that bias, researchers combined brain-bank data with death records for all 2,362 former NFL players who died in the period. Among 387 donors assessed, 362 — about 94 percent — had CTE, yet families of players with cognitive symptoms were roughly five times more likely to donate. Adjusting for that gap produced the headline estimate of 74.5 percent.

CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, is linked to repeated head impacts and can only be confirmed after death, when the brain shows abnormal build-ups of the protein tau. During life it is associated with memory loss, depression, poor impulse control and dementia — and earlier research found NFL players develop dementia at four times the rate of the general population. The authors caution that the figure describes players who have died, not living or active players, but say it should drive faster work on diagnosing CTE during life and making the game safer.

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