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Dr. Arena is a neurosurgeon at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in the intersection of clinical neurosurgery, neurotrauma, and neurodegenerative disease. He has authored more than 54 publications in these fields.

Before medicine, he was an accomplished football player at Johns Hopkins University, where he played linebacker in every game of his college career, helped lead the Blue Jays to a 28–6 record, and served as team captain in 2013. Academically, he maintained a perfect 4.0 GPA as a neuroscience major and was named the 2013 National Football Foundation Scholar-Athlete and Capital One Academic All-America Player of the Year for Division III football.

02:20 - Journey from football into medicine, neurosurgery.

05:10 - What is CTE and TES/ Probable CTE

14:48 - Lead author on “Performance of traumatic encephalopathy syndrome criteria in identifying individuals with chronic traumatic encephalopathy”

23:40 – Where to Research Wise

27:23 – Nocebo Effect

31:00 – Where too Find Assistant Professor John Arena

Assistant Professor John Arena:

- Google Scholar - https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=rBLzm34AAAAJ&hl=en

- Performance of traumatic encephalopathy syndrome criteria in identifying individuals with chronic traumatic encephalopathy: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-026-04392-9

Twitter: @first concussion

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Email: headfirstconcussion@gmail.com