Pathologically Confirmed Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in a 25-Year-Old Former College Football Player

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative tauopathy associated with repetitive head impacts.1 Presently, CTE only can be diagnosed pathologically; however, research efforts, such as the ongoing Understanding Neurological Injury and Traumatic Encephalopathy (UNITE) Study,2 are investigating ways to diagnose CTE during life. As part of the UNITE Study, a panel of clinicians, blinded to neuropathology, make retrospective clinical consensus diagnoses using published criteria, including proposed clinical research criteria for CTE.3 Here, we present an informative case from the UNITE Study.