What is CTE?

Is chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) a serious medical condition or an excuse for bad behavior? This is the question dividing the football and medical communities. Here is what you need to know about the disease.

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a brain condition that is caused by repeated blows to the head or receiving many concussions. The Boston University CTE Center has heavily researched this disease and has released a large amount of information about the details of the condition. Due to the nature of how this condition is received, it is common in athletes who play contact sports like football, hockey and boxing and is also found in military veterans. CTE has been a big point of discussion and problem, especially in the NFL. According to Boston University CTE Center, researchers found CTE in 99% of former NFL players in a 2017 study.

Even though there are no cures for CTE itself, many of the individual symptoms that CTE causes can be treated. The disease causes degeneration of brain tissue which can not be reversed.

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CTE occurs a lot in athletes who play high contact sports, like football, hockey and boxing.   (Focus on Sport/Getty Images)

According to Boston University's CTE Research Center, repeated trauma to the brain causes degeneration of brain tissue. This includes an increased amount of tau, which is an abnormal protein. These changes aren't rapid, but they do happen over time after trauma to the brain. This degeneration is parallel with common CTE symptoms, which include aggression, depression, increased confusion, loss of memory and parkinsonism (symptoms found in Parkinson's disease.)

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