3x Pro Bowl Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck named first ambassador for study to diagnose CTE during life
NIH awarded $15 million for multi-site study on former college, pro football players age 50+
May 8, 2025 (Boston) – Three-time Pro Bowler Matt Hasselbeck is being announced today by the Concussion Legacy Foundation (CLF) as the first ambassador for a new study aimed at diagnosing the brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in the living. The study, “The DIAGNOSE CTE Research Project-II,” will examine new potential biomarkers using blood and brain imaging to help doctors accurately diagnose CTE in living patients and learn how to differentiate CTE in the clinic from similar diseases like Alzheimer’s. CLF is leading recruiting for the study and tapped Hasselbeck, who pledged to donate his brain to CTE research in 2017, to encourage former NFL and college players, whether or not they are experiencing symptoms, to get in the game of CTE research.
“Some people celebrate their 50th birthday with big trips, but I’m going to celebrate mine by heading to the Boston University CTE Center this fall to help them learn how to definitively diagnose CTE while we are alive,” said Hasselbeck, who played at Boston College before competing for 18 seasons in the NFL. “It means a lot to me to be a leader on this and help researchers learn how to develop treatments for those suffering. I’m blessed to feel healthy now, but I know I’m at risk for CTE. So are my teammates, including those who took hits to the head blocking for me. I’m doing it for them, and I encourage former college and pro football players aged 50 and over to join me.”
The study will recruit 350 men, age 50 and older, including 225 former college and professional football players, 75 control participants, and 50 people with Alzheimer’s disease. Participants will enroll in one of the five study sites to complete neurological, cognitive and neuropsychiatric exams, multimodal brain imaging, tau PET imaging, and blood draws. The information will be analyzed to characterize the specific signs, symptoms, and biomarkers of people at risk for CTE. Travel support for participants is provided.
“We are grateful to former college and NFL players like Matt Hasselbeck who make CTE research possible,” said Dr. Chris Nowinski, CLF CEO. “At this point we’ve all lost former teammates to CTE, and if we want to develop treatments to slow or stop the disease in our lifetime, we need former football players to take on CTE with as much enthusiasm as we took on our opponents on the field.”
The study, funded by a $15.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will form a consortium of top academic research centers, led by the Boston University CTE Center and including the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), Banner Alzheimer’s Institute and Mayo Clinic in Arizona, the University of Florida and the University of Texas in San Antonio, and researchers from 10 other collaborating institutions..
“This study will create unprecedented data sets needed to accurately diagnose CTE during life,” said Dr. Michael Alosco, associate professor of neurology at the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. “It will fill two missing links in the literature preventing us from developing definitive diagnostic criteria for CTE during life. First, we need longitudinal studies that include brain donation. Second, we need to better compare people at risk for CTE to other disease groups.”
Right now, CTE can only be definitively diagnosed after death following brain donation. There is an urgent need to develop validated criteria to make the diagnosis of CTE during a person’s life to inform the course of clinical and biological changes in people, as well as better understand why some football players develop long-term problems and others don’t. Although this study will only study male football players, the findings will benefit all groups at risk for CTE, including male and female contact sports athletes and military veterans.
Former football players and those who have no history of contact and collision sports who are interested in the study are encouraged to sign up for the Concussion Legacy Foundation Research Registry, where they will be alerted to all clinical research opportunities they might be eligible for. Sign up at CLFResearch.org.