Study searches for what MMA does to human brain
MMAJunkie’s Ben Fowlkes did an in depth look at Dr. Charles Bernick’s study of brain trauma in combat sports conducted…
MMAJunkie’s Ben Fowlkes did an in depth look at Dr. Charles Bernick’s study of brain trauma in combat sports conducted at the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas, NV. The study has gone on since 2011, with 400 pro fighters, the majority from MMA. The base of knowledge about Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE, ie Puglistic Dementia) is woefully small, but some, first preliminary results are coming out.
Dr. Charles Bernick was never much of a fight fan before he devoted himself to studying the brains of the people who get hit in the head for a living.
He still isn’t, if you want to know the truth. Three years into his research at the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas, he’s met hundreds of pro fighters, even has a few favorites (I watch ‘Big Country’ Nelson, he said), but as far as he’s concerned he could just as easily be studying pro football players.
As Nevada State Athletic Commission executive director Keith Kizer pointed out, while Las Vegas might not be a city normally associated with important scientific studies, it does offer something that university laboratories don’t.
You can’t ethically or legally hire a bunch of college students and hit them in the head to see what happens, said Kizer. But you know that on Nov. 30 there’s going to be 22 fighters here for the UFC, and even the winners are going to get hit in the head a few times.
The question Bernick is trying to answer is, what happens to them after that?
For MMA fighters and even fans, the questions are more pointed still. After years of telling ourselves that our sport is safer than boxing or football – both of which have been linked to diseases like chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) – what if we’re wrong? What if MMA is just as bad for your brain (and, as an extension, the rest of your life) as those other sports? What if it’s worse?
Bernick’s study – officially dubbed the Professional Fighter Brain Health Study – is still in the early stages. Since 2011 he’s examined nearly 400 pro fighters – about 60 percent MMA fighters, 40 percent boxers, according to his estimates – using advanced MRI scans, neurological exams, tests to track changes in speech, balance, mood, reaction time, cognitive abilities and more.
While it may be years before he has anything definitive to report, the study has already broken new ground in at least one area: the relationship between fighting and decreased brain volume.
In general, it’s what you’d expect, Bernick said. The more fights you’ve got, the lower the [brain] volumes are. But what’s really the finding is that it’s in very particular parts of the brain.
What Bernick is seeing in the preliminary findings across both boxing and MMA, he said, suggests that repetitive head trauma does cause degeneration of cells, and the areas shrink.
So what does that mean for the fighters?
We don’t know, Bernick said. It may not mean anything. Lower volumes are associated with worse performances on cognitive tests, so there’s a relationship there. So the thought is, if you progressively lower volumes, that may be an indicator that you are at risk of having worse performance mentally. But the only way we’re going to know is to follow that over time.