7T MRI Versus 3T MRI of the Brain in Professional Fighters and Patients With Head Trauma

The medical question

Can a stronger MRI scanner show changes in a fighter’s brain that a standard scanner misses?

The Fight Medicine Research Institute uses this evidence to frame questions about which imaging methods can detect brain changes in fighters and what those changes mean for a fighter’s health. The study’s small groups, which differed in age and sex, determine which questions it can inform.

Summary

In 19 professional fighters, 7T MRI showed more white matter changes than 3T MRI, and the fighters had more of these changes than healthy controls at both scanner strengths.

What the work reports

• Fighters and patients with head trauma each had brain MRI at two magnet strengths, 3 Tesla (3T) and 7 Tesla (7T). Healthy controls were scanned at one strength only, 61 at 3T and 21 at 7T. Two neuroradiologists counted white matter changes (bright spots in the brain’s white matter on one type of MRI image) and cerebral microhemorrhages (very small bleeds) on the scans.
• Both readers found more white matter changes with 7T than with 3T in fighters and in patients with head trauma, on average two more per participant. Both readers also found more white matter changes in fighters than in healthy controls, at 3T and at 7T. The counts did not differ significantly between fighters and patients with head trauma.
• The number of microhemorrhages did not differ significantly between 7T and 3T. In fighters, the number of white matter changes was not significantly associated with memory, speed or reaction time scores, depression or impulsiveness scores, a blood marker of damage to nerve fibers, or the number of professional fights. The authors conclude that 7T MRI can detect more white matter changes than 3T MRI and that larger studies are needed to determine their cause.

Limits to keep in mind

• The groups were small. The authors say the small sample could have contributed to finding no association with test scores.
• The groups differed in age and sex, which the authors name as potential confounders. All fighters were male with a mean age of 40 years; 25% of the patients were male, with a mean age of 30 years.
• Healthy controls were scanned on one machine only, so the comparison of 3T and 7T scans of the same person covers fighters and patients only.
• One of the two readers knew which group each participant belonged to, and neither could be blinded to scanner strength. The authors state that they cannot exclude other causes of white matter changes, such as migraine.

Source issues recorded

• Crossref gives no page range for this article and lists an article number of neur.2023.0001. The article and Europe PMC give pages 342–349, which this record uses.
• Crossref dates the journal issue March 2023, which is earlier than the article’s online publication date of 18 May 2023.
• The abstract and conclusion say the number of cerebral microhemorrhages did not differ significantly between fighters or patients and healthy controls. Table 4 of the article reports that one of the two readers counted more microhemorrhages in fighters than in controls on 3T MRI (p = 0.027).

Publication status and notices

Published in Neurotrauma Reports, a peer-reviewed journal. Original research article in Neurotrauma Reports.

Form of this work: Version of record. The version of record is the final article as issued by its publisher.

No correction or retraction notice was found in Crossref or Europe PMC when this record was checked.

Fight Medicine Research Institute contribution

Fight Medicine Research Institute selected and catalogued this study, prepared an original research summary, verified its bibliographic details, and maintains the associated citation record.

PDF files

Article details

Relationship

External research catalogued by the Fight Medicine Research Institute. The original authors, journal and DOI are unchanged.

Published online

18 May 2023

Issue date

March 2023, volume 4, issue 1

Repository date

18 May 2023 (Europe PMC first-publication date)

Date used here

18 May 2023 (Crossref publisher deposit, online publication date)

Rights

CC BY 4.0. Open access under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY 4.0), as recorded by Europe PMC and the licence link in the source record. The summary on this page is Fight Medicine Research Institute’s own wording. No text or figure from the article is reproduced here. Licence terms.

Source check

12 November 2026, against PubMed Central full text, Crossref and Europe PMC. Checked under the direction of Casey C. Sears, Founder. An LLM was utilized as a research tool with direct human oversight.

Appraisal

The check covered bibliographic details, links, licence and notices. It is not a formal critical appraisal of the full paper.

Clinical review

None. This record is a research summary, not clinical education.

Funding and conflicts

The article states that the work was funded by the Lincy Foundation, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), Spike TV/Bellator MMA, Top Rank Promotions, Golden Boy Promotions, the August Rapone Family Foundation and Haymon Boxing, and that the funders supported data collection but were not involved in the design, analysis, writing or decision to submit. One author discloses research support from UFC, Top Rank Promotions and Haymon Boxing, and another discloses financial support from Siemens, Eisai, Monteris and St Jude that the article says is unrelated to it.

Catalog

FH-047, added 12 November 2026

Cite the original work

These files cite the work by its own authors, journal and DOI. Fight Medicine Research Institute appears only in a note, as curator of this catalog page.

Jonathan K Lee, Charles Bernick, Steve Stephen, Aaron Ritter, Jennifer Bullen, Arvindpaul Mangat, et al.. 7T MRI Versus 3T MRI of the Brain in Professional Fighters and Patients With Head Trauma. Neurotrauma Reports. 2023;4(1):342-349. https://doi.org/10.1089/neur.2023.0001

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Related on this website

• Research program: Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)
• Research priority: Repetitive head impacts and CTE
• Fighter Health: Repetitive head impacts, brain imaging, CTE pathology and TES research