chronic traumatic encephalopathy

Everybody seems to be having fun when the kids in a new public service announcement are just playing football, until one boy is thrown to the ground and the background music turns ominous. Then, the coach starts handing out cigarettes. “Tackle football is like smoking,” a youthful voice-over says as a smiling, motherly type lights a cigarette for one of...

Former Super Bowl hero Mark Rypien pleads not guilty to domestic violence in Washington state.

The NFL concussion fund has paid out nearly $500 million in its first two years, but some players’ lawyers say there aren’t enough doctors in the approved network to evaluate dementia claims.

Researchers may be closing in on a way to check athletes while they’re alive for signs of a degenerative brain disease that’s been linked to frequent head blows. Experimental scans found higher levels of an abnormal protein tied to the disease in a study of former National Football League players who were having mood and thinking problems. It’s the first...

Researchers have confirmed what Atlanta Falcons linebacker Tommy Nobis’ family long suspected: He had the most severe form of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease linked to repetitive blows to the head that can cause the kind of violent moods they had grown accustomed to. And now, as the NFL world descends upon Atlanta for Sunday’s Super Bowl, it...

The Ohio Supreme Court will decide whether the widow of a former University of Notre Dame football player can sue the school and the NCAA over allegations her husband was disabled by concussions from his college career in the 1970s. Steve Schmitz was suffering from dementia and early onset Alzheimer’s disease when he and his wife, Yvette, filed a lawsuit...

Two California lawmakers want to outlaw tackle football leagues until teenagers reach high school, saying delaying the start of high-contact elements of football would protect young people from long-term brain damage.

Former NFL star Larry Johnson Jr. says he believes he has chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. NBC 6’s Jawan Strader spoke with Johnson about his struggles with memory loss and fighting self-destructive impulses and fits of rage — all symptoms of people diagnosed with CTE.

After completing an NFL career that included two Super Bowls, Fred McNeill got an advanced law degree and practiced law. But within just a few years, he began to fall apart, losing his temper, losing his memory and losing job after job, NBC News reported. “Here is this person who was so kind, so intelligent, so special, so loving, so...

Former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez suffered substantial damage to parts of the brain that affect memory, judgment and behavior from the most severe case of a degenerative disease linked to head blows ever found in someone so young, a researcher said Thursday. Dr. Ann McKee, director of Boston University’s CTE Center, stressed that she could not “connect the...

Participation in high school football is down 3.5 percent over the past five years, according to the annual survey by the National Association of State High School Federations, or NFHS. The decline would be much steeper if not for a handful of states in the South and the West. Throughout the Northeast, the Midwest and the West Coast, in communities...

Tom Brady doesn’t worry about concussions and considers them part of playing football, the New England Patriots quarterback says in a television interview to be broadcast this weekend.

Researchers are tackling fresh questions about a degenerative brain disease now that it has been detected in the brains of nearly 200 football players after death. The suspected cause is repeated head blows, an almost unavoidable part of contact sports. As a new NFL season gets underway, here’s a look at what’s known — and what still needs to be...

Lori Anderson grew up with a big, traditional, football-loving family in Austin, Texas, and moved her own family to midwest Michigan. There, she did what was once unthinkable: She did not let her 13-year-old son play football. “I feel it is my job as a parent to make those hard decisions and this was one of them,” she said. “I...

A startling new study by Boston University researchers found that after an examination of 111 deceased former NFL players, 99 percent of them had a progressive degenerative brain disease.

The first two claims in the NFL’s billion-dollar concussion settlement were announced Thursday, a total of $9 million in benefits.

A lawyer for ex-NFL star Aaron Hernandez is accusing the state medical examiner of “illegally” holding the player’s brain despite the family’s wishes to donate it for CTE research.

A federal judge on Wednesday urged NFL retirees to register for a concussion settlement that could cost the league $1 billion over 65 years.

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected challenges to the estimated $1 billion plan by the NFL to settle thousands of concussion lawsuits filed by former players, clearing the way for payouts to begin to those who have been diagnosed with brain injuries linked to repeated concussions. The settlement covers more than 20,000 retired NFL players for the next 65 years....

The cause of death for WWE star Chyna has not been determined as toxicology tests are pending, coroner’s officials said.