Houston Chronicle · Feb 2, 2017
Concussion foundation received nearly 650 new brain donations in 2016
Concussions and the brain damage they cause are increasingly on people's minds.
The Concussion Legacy Foundation, devoted to studying and preventing head trauma in sports, announced Thursday that 647 new athletes pledged last year to donate their brains after death for research, which brings the total to 1,467.
The foundation currently is studying 400 brains, of which 277 belonged to athletes.
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative disease caused by extensive head trauma known as CTE, has emerged as the NFL's critical issue in less than a decade. It inspired a movie staring Will Smith and looms as a threat to end football.
