“CTE is linked to repetitive brain trauma and has a distinct pathology that can only be diagnosed at autopsy,” says Dr. Ross Zafonte, a principal investigator of the Football Players Health Study at Harvard University and executive vice dean at the University of Missouri.

Shane Devon Tamura — the man who killed at least four people in a New York City office building — claimed in a suicide noted that he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) while slamming the NFL. “Study my brain please,” Tamura, a former high-school football player, wrote in the note. "I'm sorry."

The disease has been diagnosed in more than 100 former NFL players and arisen as an existential threat to the United States’ most powerful pro sports league.