Fight Medicine Research Institute

Repetitive head impacts and CTE

What years of head impacts in sparring and competition do to the brain, and what can be measured while a fighter is still competing.

A priority states what Fight Medicine Research Institute wants answered and why. It is not a study, a finding or a recommendation. Any study must first pass scientific review and independent ethics review under policy R-01.

Why it matters

Fighters take head impacts in training and in competition for years. In the pathology records in the library, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) was identified by examining brain tissue after death.

That leaves working fighters with a hard gap between what they are exposed to and what anyone can tell them about their own brain. Fight Medicine Research Institute wants research that narrows the gap and is reported to fighters in terms they can use.

Research questions

  • Which measures taken during a career, such as imaging, cognitive testing and blood markers, track with later brain health?
  • How do sparring load, number of bouts, weight class and weight cutting relate to changes in the brain?
  • What do fighters want to know about their own results, and how should findings be returned to them?
  • What do retired fighters and their families need when problems appear?

In the research library

The library holds 18 records on this priority. Several analyse the same cohort of professional fighters.