Ann McKee Quotes

CTE can be caused by smaller hits to the head over time.

The beginnings of CTE can start quite early.

The relationship between concussions and the asserted clinical symptoms of C.T.E. remains unknown.

One thing that's important to understand is that it's believed that the pathology of CTE doesn't have to do with concussion so much as it has to do with the accumulation of sub-concussive hits. So every hit matters. If you're subject to 800 or 1,200 of these every year, it accumulates. It's like erosion.

It's simple to get a concussion, you know. I don't know how many I've had over my career, you know, but I've definitely had my fair share.

Chronic means long term. Traumatic means associated with trauma. Encephalopathy means a bad brain.

My father was an NFL running back, so I feel like I might be more susceptible, genetically, to CTE.

My brain is - essentially, you take any college football player in the country, because I have had multiple, multiple concussions. I had 10 documented concussions, four post-concussion seizures and so, but, with that said, my brain is no worse than your average college football player's brain, right?

The overwhelming evidence is that trauma is a major factor in CTE.

In boxing, you've got CTE from head trauma constantly.

All the NFL players I have examined pathologically, I have not seen one that did not have changes in their brain system with brain damage.

I would bet you that even though people think I absorbed an inordinate number of head injuries, I'd say relative to the number of guys who have played this game, I would say that my head injuries were relatively small.

A child who plays a game of football for one season without any documented concussion - several months after that season, if you subject his brain to sophisticated psychological testing and radiological testing, functional MRIs, there is evidence of brain damage.

More and more NFL players have been willing their bodies to science so that their brains can be studied even if they die of other causes.

Concussions are still kind of a mysterious thing.

I understand the seriousness of concussions.

It's just a matter of sometimes the CTE in your brain affects what happens in your life... and sometimes... it does not.

We, as a league, we have not in any way changed our desire to do everything we can to make it safe, make it safe as to head injury. We hope and will support any data that would give us more insight into any short- and long-term consequences. We would support that.

I'm learning how to prevent my brain from getting worse than it is after suffering a career worth of concussions playing football.

Despite the fact that every sport this side of badminton worries about concussions that result in brain damage, CTE, the National Hockey League refuses to accept the overwhelming medical science. Good grief - the NHL still permits fights.

It's impossible for me to dissociate the risk of playing football from the risk of C.T.E.

I know if I don't look after myself, I will be talking to you in a couple of years' time mumbling my words and slurring. It won't be because I am drunk: it will be the fighting, taking blow after blow to the brain. That scares me. I don't worry about being killed in the ring; it's losing my mind that I fear.

While we know, on average, that certain positions experience more repetitive head impacts and are more likely at greater risk for CTE, no position is immune.

Yes, the concept that blunt-force trauma of the head causes brain damage is a generally accepted principle of medicine. That is why I was so appalled by the NFL doctors who were denying my work.

If I have another concussion and I don't feel like I can play anymore, then I won't.