Moderate‐Severe Traumatic Brain Injury History and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Neuropathology in Brain Donors Exposed to Repetitive Head Impacts

Repetitive head impacts (RHI) from American football and other sources are associated with the neurodegenerative tauopathy chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Moderate‐to‐severe traumatic brain injury (msTBI) has been suggested to be sufficient to precipitate CTE. Yet, this evidence is based on small case series of msTBI and the interplay between msTBI and RHI on CTE risk is unknown. We modeled the associations between msTBI history and years of American football play (proxy for RHI exposure duration) on CTE neuropathology among deceased American football players.