This was then followed by a paper on a second case in 2006 describing similar pathology, based on findings in the brain of former NFL player Terry Long.In 2008, the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at the BU School of Medicine (now the BU CTE Center) started the VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank at the Bedford Veterans Administration Hospital to analyze the effects of CTE and other neurodegenerative diseases on the brain and spinal cord of athletes, military veterans, and civilians. To date, the VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank is the largest CTE tissue repository in the world, with over 1000 brain donors.On 21 December 2009, the National Football League Players Association announced that it would collaborate with the BU CTE Center to support the centers study of repetitive brain trauma in athletes. Additionally, in 2010 the National Football League gave the BU CTE Center a $1 million gift with no strings attached. In 2008, twelve living athletes (active and retired), including hockey players Pat LaFontaine and Noah Welch as well as former NFL star Ted Johnson, committed to donate their brains to VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank after their deaths.
In 2018, NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., who retired in 2017 citing multiple concussions, became the first auto racing competitor agreeing to donate his brain upon his death.In related research, the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes, which is part of the Department of Exercise and Sport Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is conducting research funded by National Football League Charities to "study former football players, a population with a high prevalence of exposure to prior Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (MTBI) and sub-concussive impacts, in order to investigate the association between increased football exposure and recurrent MTBI and neurodegenerative disorders such as cognitive impairment and Alzheimers disease (AD)".In February 2011, former NFL player Dave Duerson committed suicide via a gunshot to his chest, thus leaving his brain intact. Duerson left text messages to loved ones asking that his brain be donated to research for CTE. The family got in touch with representatives of the Boston University center studying the condition, said Robert Stern, the co-director of the research group. Stern said Duersons gift was the first time of which he was aware that such a request had been made by someone who had committed suicide that was potentially linked to CTE. Stern and his colleagues found high levels of the protein tau in Duersons brain. These elevated levels, which were abnormally clumped and pooled along the brain sulci, are indicative of CTE.In July 2010, NHL enforcer Bob Probert died of heart failure.