Study finds greater risk of cognitive issues in boxing than MMA
Neurologist Charles Bernick said that at this point, boxers appear to be at greater risk of cognitive problems and brain shrinkage than mixed martial arts fighters.
Neurologist Charles Bernick has led the Professional Fighter Brain Health Study for some four years, and have linked repeated head contact with a smaller brain structure volume and slower processing speed.
Bernick said that at this point, boxers appear to be at greater risk of cognitive problems and brain shrinkage than mixed martial arts fighters.
The reason for that, Bernick said, isn’t so simple to determine at this stage.
“Boxers come out worse,” he said. “We’re seeing more shrinkage in boxers in these particular structures we’re looking at on the MRI. What does that mean? Does it mean that boxers are sustaining more trauma or are boxers just different in general? A lot more MMA guys are college educated. They come, in a lot of cases, from different socio-economic backgrounds than the boxers.
“We can’t pinpoint the cause for this, though just off the top of your head you’d say, ‘Yeah, it’s because [boxers] get hit in the head more.’ If you look at these statistics services like CompuBox and [CompuStrike], it’s clear that boxers are being hit more than MMA guys in the same weight classes. So is the answer simply, ‘They get hit more?’ Whether that’s the only factor, though, I don’t know. But yes, boxers come out worse [than MMA fighters].”
“Perhaps the most obvious explanation is that boxers get hit in the head more,” the researchers wrote. “In addition to trying to concuss (i.e. knock out) their opponent, martial arts fighters can utilize other combat skills such as wrestling and jiu jitsu to win their match by submission without causing a concussion.”