Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Linked to Repetitive Head Impacts

FRIDAY, Oct. 31, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is more common in people who experience extensive repetitive head impacts (RHI), according to a study published online Oct. 18 in the Journal of Neuropathology & Experimental Neurology.

Enna Selmanovic, from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, and colleagues conducted a comprehensive neuropathologic examination of 47 consecutive donor brains from the Late Effects of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Project to examine the association of CTE-neuropathologic change (NC) with isolated traumatic brain injury (iTBI) and nonsport RHI.

The researchers found that seven individuals (14.9 percent) had CTE-NC, which was defined as perivascular neuronal tau at the depth of sulcus, while four, one, and two had low, high, and indeterminate CTE-NC burden, respectively. Substantial RHI exposure was seen in five of the seven CTE-NC donors: football, boxing, military and interpersonal violence, and child abuse (three, one, one, and one, respectively); no known RHI trauma was seen in one CTE-NC case, two had severe iTBIs sustained 30 and three years prior to death. Variable patterns of head trauma were seen in donors without CTE-NC: RHI exposure (college football; 4 people), some RHI (21 individuals; 17 of whom also had one or more iTBI), and one or more iTBI but no RHI (15 people).

“While the findings continue to suggest that CTE can be linked to extensive, repeated head impacts, they also underscore the need to better understand how distinct types of head trauma relate to CTE risk, as well as the need to identify additional risk and protective factors,” Selmanovic said in a statement.

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