Newsday - First diagnosed case of CTE brain trauma in female athlete - BBC Sounds

Australian scientists have for the first time diagnosed a female athlete with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive degenerative brain disease caused by repeated head injuries.

The diagnosis was made on the brain of Heather Anderson, an Australian Rules footballer who took her own life in November 2022, aged 28. She played eight professional games in the top-tier Australian Football League Women's (AFLW). She suffered several injuries throughout her career including at least one concussion.

Studies on the disease, which is linked to contact sports, are usually carried out on male athletes.

Ms Anderson's family donated her brain to the Australian Sports Brain Bank (ASBB), in the hope of better understanding her death.

Professor Michael Buckland, who co-authored the study, told Newsday that since the surge of female participation in contact sports, “we’re now actually seeing large numbers of young women getting lots and lots of hits to the head and after a delay…this long-term disease starting to emerge…Heather Anderson is the tip of the iceberg…It should really be a red flag for everyone in sport, we’ve got to take this seriously.”