Fighting Their Way to Brain Disease?

April 18, 2012

Ongoing study examines head trauma among boxers and mixed martial artists and when brain damage begins.

It’s long been known that boxers and other athletes can develop brain damage from repeated blows to the head. Now a new study is trying to find out when that damage begins and how long it takes for symptoms to appear. Researchers say it could help make contact sports safer.

The ongoing Professional Fighters Brain Health Study follows so-called combat sports. Participants currently include 109 boxers and mixed martial artists with an average age of 29.

Study author Dr. Charles Bernick says combat sports have long been linked to degenerative brain disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

When and how

“Nobody really knows how one goes from having repetitive blows to the head to developing long-term brain disease. So how that actually happens,” he said.

Bernick is associate director of the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. He said the study focuses on three things.

“One is to see if we can detect these earliest or most subtle changes of brain injury occurring in athletes or individuals exposed to head trauma - then to be able to identify those that may be developing this disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy. And then finally determine what factors make one individual more likely to develop it than others because certainly not all fighters or athletes exposed to head trauma develop this,” he said.