It is hardly coincidence that brings some leading doctors and researchers in the field of the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy, tied to repeated head blows in sports, together here on Pro Bowl weekend.

Less than 9 miles from Aloha Stadium, site of the NFL’s annual all-star game Sunday, they will gather today at The Queen’s Conference Center in an 8:30 a.m.-2:45 p.m. “Neuro-Huddle” session that is free to the public.

“(CTE) is a focus of football right now, so it is a good time with people here for the Pro Bowl,” said Dr. Robert Stern, a keynote speaker and professor of neurology, neurosurgery and anatomy and neurobiology at Boston University’s School of Medicine.

The conference is hosted by the Pathology Residency program at UH’s John A. Burns School of Medicine in conjunction with the Gary O. Galiher Foundation and Hawaii Awareness and Concussion Management program and is open to coaches, athletic trainers and parents today.

Stern is the principal investigator in a landmark, seven-year, $16 million National Institutes of Health-funded study that includes brain disease in former NFL players. The goal, he said, is to learn how to diagnose CTE in living players.

For all the attention generated by the movie “Concussion” and enhanced concussion protocols, Stern said concussions themselves, “are just the tip of the iceberg. That’s a big issue that people don’t typically get, that these long-term problems, like CTE, are not a consequence of concussions only. (They are) the result of repetitive hits that might be called sub-concussive, where there are no (immediate) symptoms associated.”

Today Stern is scheduled to discuss studies showing the differences between those who began playing tackle football between ages 9 and 12 and continued to play on into the NFL and those who who took it up at age 12 or older.

Among 42 former NFL players ages 45 to 69, “the ones who started getting their head hit over and over again before age 12 had, as adults, significantly worse cognitive functioning and significantly worse integrity of connections between the brain cells,” Stern said. “That’s really important. That’s really striking.”

Stern said he is asked, “‘If I’m a parent, should I not allow my kid to play tackle football before age 12?’ That’s a question way beyond where the science is. I answer that question (this) way: We do everything possible to make sure our kids are safe, are healthy (and) don’t have injuries. We make sure that we do everything possible to assure the success of their future and, yet, we drop them off at the playing field and say, ‘Hey, go hit your head over and over and over again during a time when the brain is going through this incredible growth and maturation.”

Stern said, “So, does the research say, ‘Oh, we should definitely stop youth tackle football?’ No. The question, though, is how much research do we need to make that decision? And, at this point, is there just a logical answer: Why should we put our young kids in a position of having their brains hurt at a time when they may be more vulnerable?

“So, I applaud all the efforts now to increase flag football in youth. The NFL has expanded new youth flag football as part of U.S. Football (and) that’s fantastic.”