Daily Mail sports news editor Alex Raskin writes on ex-NFL star Merril Hoge who disputes a connection between football and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Hoge's football career was cut short due to a pair of concussions and he has since written a book about his view on CTE.

Erin E. Manning, MD, neurologist at HSS, explains that there is still much about CTE that researchers do not fully understand.

"We don't know why people get CTE. I think the most that it's been looked at is in football players, but all we know is what the brain looks like after they die. We don't know what happens during people's lives. We also don't know how the findings correlate with people's symptoms," says Dr. Manning.

She states that there is a lot of research that needs to be done as there is no established link between football and CTE, nor concussions and CTE.

"The [existing] studies have been mostly observational. In science, we consider the gold standard to be randomized controlled studies," said Dr. Manning, who points out that this topic does not lend itself to that type of study.

Read the full article at DailyMail.co.uk.