The biggest misconception about CTE, according to a leading brain trauma expert

This week, the late National Hockey League veteran Greg Johnson was diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. Johnson died by suicide five years ago at the age of 48, having played 14 seasons in the NHL. It’s the latest sign of the prevalence of CTE, a progressive neurodegenerative disease caused by repeated impacts to the head, in professional contact sports.

Ann McKee — the director of Boston University CTE Center who gave Johnson’s diagnosis — wants people to start paying more attention to the emerging evidence that impacts to the head can have big consequences not just for professional players, but for young athletes, too.

“I have an 18-year-old with stage 2 CTE that looks just as bad as some 33- year-old NFL players with CTE,” McKee told STAT from her office at the Boston VA Medical Center.

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