How common is CTE?

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It is unclear how common CTE is in the general population. Autopsy studies on CTE have shown that a high percentage of people whose brains have been donated (especially former college and professional American football players) have had the disease. However, these studies are susceptible to potential biases due to the fact that the majority of brains may have been donated to research because the individual had been experiencing symptoms associated with CTE. For this reason, it is difficult to generalize these autopsy studies to the general population. Future research on individuals with a wide range of types of repetitive head impact exposure will allow for better estimates of how common it is. Some researchers believe that CTE may become more common in the years to come as large numbers of individuals who played American tackle football since the advent of the large plastic helmet and facemask (late 1950s) and the development of organized youth tackle football (late 1960s to early 1970s) become older.