Ann McKee (born 1953) is a neuropathologist and expert in

neurodegenerative A neurodegenerative disease is caused by the progressive loss of structure or function of neurons, in the process known as neurodegeneration. Such neuronal damage may ultimately involve cell death. Neurodegenerative diseases include amyotrophic ...

disease at the New England

Veterans Affairs Veterans' affairs is an area of public policy concerned with relations between a government and its communities of military veterans. Some jurisdictions have a designated government agency or department, a Department of Veterans' Affairs, Minist ...

Medical Centers (VISN-1) and is professor of neurology and pathology at Boston University School of Medicine and director of

Boston University CTE Center The Boston University CTE Center is an independently run medical research lab located at the Boston University School of Medicine. The Center focuses on research related to the long-term effects of brain trauma and degenerative brain diseases, speci ...

. She is particularly known for her work studying Alzheimer's disease and the consequences of repetitive

traumatic brain injury A traumatic brain injury (TBI), also known as an intracranial injury, is an injury to the brain caused by an external force. TBI can be classified based on severity (ranging from mild traumatic brain injury TBI/concussionto severe traumatic br ...

. In 2017, she was named "Bostonian of the Year" by ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'' for her leading work in this area, and in 2018, ''Time'' named McKee one of its

100 most influential people ''Time'' 100 (often stylized as ''TIME'' 100) is an annual listicle of the 100 most influential people in the world, assembled by the American news magazine ''Time''. First published in 1999 as the result of a debate among American academics, po ...

Education

McKee earned her bachelor's degree at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...

and her medical degree at

Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine Case Western Reserve School of Medicine (CWRU SOM, CaseMed) is the medical school of Case Western Reserve University, a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. It is the largest biomedical research center in Ohio. History On November ...

. McKee then completed a fellowship in neuropathology at Massachusetts General Hospital and a residency in

neurology Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal ...

at Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital.

Career

McKee is the chief neuropathologist at New England Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (VISN-1), and director of the

and Neuropathology Core for the Boston University Alzheimer's Disease Center (BU ADC). Dr. McKee is also associate director of the BU ADC. Dr. McKee directs multiple brain banks including those for the BU ADC and

Framingham Heart Study The Framingham Heart Study is a long-term, ongoing cardiovascular cohort study of residents of the city of Framingham, Massachusetts. The study began in 1948 with 5,209 adult subjects from Framingham, and is now on its third generation of partic ...

which are based at the Bedford VA, and the VA-BU-CLF and Chronic Effects of Neurotrauma Consortium brain banks which are based at VA Boston. Dr. McKee's research focuses on CTE and the late-effects of traumatic neurodegeneration. McKee is a leading authority on

chronic traumatic encephalopathy Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disease linked to repeated trauma to the head. The encephalopathy symptoms can include behavioral problems, mood problems, and problems with thinking. The disease often gets worse ...

(CTE), a degenerative brain disease. CTE is most commonly found in athletes participating in

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermine ...

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

, other

contact sport Contact sports are sports that emphasize or require physical contact between players. Some sports, such as mixed martial arts, are scored on impacting an opponent, while others, including rugby football, gridiron football and Australian rules fo ...

s, and military service. In 2013, she reported that she had found evidence of CTE in over 70 of the athletes that she examined, including three

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

enforcers and 18 NFL players. McKee has presented her findings to

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

officials and testified before the

United States House Judiciary Committee The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, also called the House Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. It is charged with overseeing the administration of justice within the federal courts, a ...

. She has also studied diseases including Lewy body disease,

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

progressive supranuclear palsy Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is a late-onset degenerative disease involving the gradual deterioration and death of specific volumes of the brain. The condition leads to symptoms including loss of balance, slowing of movement, difficulty ...

, multiple system atrophy,

frontotemporal lobar degeneration Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) is a pathological process that occurs in frontotemporal dementia. It is characterized by atrophy in the frontal lobe and temporal lobe of the brain, with sparing of the parietal and occipital lobes. Commo ...

, and

corticobasal degeneration Corticobasal degeneration (CBD) is a rare neurodegenerative disease involving the cerebral cortex and the basal ganglia. CBD symptoms typically begin in people from 50 to 70 years of age, and the average disease duration is six years. It is chara ...

Accolades and awards

McKee has received numerous awards in recognition of her work. In 2018, the

Alzheimer's Association The Alzheimer's Association was founded by Jerome H. Stone with the help of several family members in Chicago, Illinois, and incorporated on April 10, 1980, as the Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Association, Inc. It is a non-profit Ame ...

gave her the Henry Wisniewski Lifetime Achievement Award for her work. In the same year, ''Time'' magazine named her one of the 100 Most Influential People.

Chris Borland Christopher Borland (born December 26, 1990) is a former American football linebacker who played for the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Wisconsin, and was drafted by the 49ers in the thi ...

, a former

linebacker Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, ...

for the

San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National ...

who retired at the age of 24 due to brain injury concerns spurred by McKee's research, said "She may have saved my life. At the very least, her work has likely spared me much of the suffering we see today among former NFL players."

Personal life

McKee has three children and lives in Massachusetts. She has a long-term boyfriend named Gary, but he is known as "Harv" by friends and family. She is a Green Bay Packers fan.

References

External links

Boston University CTE Center

Publications by Ann McKee on ResearchGate

VA Boston Healthcare System
* {{DEFAULTSORT:McKee, Ann 1953 births Living people People from Appleton, Wisconsin University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Case Western Reserve University alumni Harvard University faculty Boston University faculty American neurologists Women neurologists American women neuroscientists American neuroscientists American pathologists Women pathologists Concussion activists American women academics 21st-century American women Members of the National Academy of Medicine