Claire Hafner’s chin is tucked in protectively behind her gloves. Simply above them, her eyes are laser-focused, searching for a gap. Her arms shoot out like twin pistons, forcing the strong teen powerhouse she’s sparring with to retreat in opposition to the ropes.
At 46, the Edmonton-based boxer is mulling over retirement however needs a Canadian title earlier than she throws within the towel.
“It’s going to be laborious to hold up the gloves with out checking that field,” she mentioned.
That call hangs largely on what a group of researchers in Las Vegas discover when she meets up with them for exhaustive annual testing on her mind well being.
Hafner is one in every of 17 Canadian athletes collaborating in a landmark research of the results of head trauma on 900 residing athletes, principally from fight sports activities.
Solely about 100 of the individuals are ladies, so Hafner’s mind could present insights to assist future ladies athletes, sufferers with neurodegenerative circumstances, survivors of intimate associate violence and troopers with head trauma.
Claire Hafner is one in every of 17 Canadian athletes collaborating in a research on the results of head trauma on 900 residing athletes, principally from fight sports activities. She calls it a ‘as soon as in a lifetime alternative.’
The Skilled Fighters Mind Well being Research began in 2011 on the Lou Ruvo Heart for Mind Well being in Las Vegas with just some dozen athletes and a aim of inspecting the long-term results of head trauma on athletes and its potential hyperlinks to neurodegenerative circumstances like Alzheimer’s.
The cumulative analysis has generated quite a few peer-reviewed papers on head trauma, together with work on blood biomarkers of repetitive head accidents, a assessment of the impacts on female and male fighters’ brains and adjustments within the brains of fighters after they retire.
The information is collected by way of non-public annual assessments of collaborating athletes. These assessments additionally present every particular person athlete with details about any deterioration of their reminiscence, response occasions, steadiness or mind tissue.
A battery of assessments
“Boxing is a sport the place you volunteer to be punched within the head. So I feel there’s much less sympathy round head trauma,” Hafner mentioned.
After years of sparring and taking hits, she worries concerning the brief time period and cumulative results on her mind, however normally not within the warmth of the second.
“I am within the ring and I do not even understand I get hit. Like I’ve to observe my video again and be like, ‘Oh, I took an enormous one,'” she mentioned.
Throughout her annual visits to the centre, which started in 2020, she undergoes a two-hour collection of computerized assessments and fills out a self-assessment on her moods and emotional wellbeing. Her blood is distributed to the lab to search for will increase in protein markers that might point out head trauma. They’re most of the similar markers present in folks with circumstances like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
This time round, her outcomes will decide whether or not she dangers one other 12 months within the ring.
Ladies an necessary a part of the research
One of many important focuses of the research, in response to the chief researcher Dr. Charles Bernick, is to empower athletes to make knowledgeable selections about their careers and when it may be time to faucet out.
It additionally seems for tell-tale indicators of Power Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, a degenerative situation linked to repeated head trauma which may solely be identified after dying.
Christine Ferea, who’s among the many 900 athletes collaborating in a research on the results of head trauma, hopes the analysis helps settle debates occurring in ladies’s fight sports activities — like what number of rounds there needs to be and the way lengthy they need to final.
Utilizing blood assessments and MRIs, researchers search for among the traits related to the situation with the hope of in the future with the ability to diagnose CTE in residing athletes and possibly even forestall it from progressing.
Final 12 months, the primary case of CTE was identified in a feminine athlete — an Aussie guidelines footballer.
Bernick says that having ladies take part within the research is necessary, as a result of there are gaps in understanding the long-term results of head impacts on ladies “whether or not that is in sports activities or home violence or in our army.”
Already, they’ve made some exceptional preliminary findings together with that with regards to long-term results, ladies fighters seem to fare higher than their male counterparts.
“It does not appear that they are at a better danger,” mentioned Bernick. “If now we have two teams which are getting hit, and the ladies are doing higher, is there one thing organic that’s defending them?”
Reigning ladies’s bare-knuckle boxing world champion Christine “The Misfit” Ferea additionally signed up for the research, partly for peace of thoughts.
“It made me really feel slightly bit safer. So every year I am going, if I am not declining, I am not going to retire,” she mentioned.
Ferea additionally hopes the analysis helps settle debates occurring in ladies’s fight sports activities like what number of rounds there needs to be and the way lengthy they need to final.
“I feel it is an awesome factor to have. And particularly for the feminine fighters, we do not have that analysis as a result of we have not been in fight sports activities for so long as males,” Ferea mentioned.
The research can be discovering proof that when folks with indicators of decay go away a fight or excessive impression sport, their blood markers and mind imaging stabilize and that, as a bunch, they’re discovering folks get higher.
“When individuals are actively uncovered to move impacts, it’s altering the mind. And when you cease, there may be this chance for restore,” he mentioned.
‘What’s yet one more time?’
When Hafner will get her take a look at outcomes, it is excellent news: “You might be superior to most individuals your age,” in response to Bernick.
His evaluation of whether or not or not she ought to retire is much less definitive.
“For those who’re asking, are you going to do irreparable hurt to do yet one more combat? After all not. You recognize, as a result of all these things is simply cumulative,” Bernick mentioned throughout their session. “For those who’ve achieved what you’ve got needed to attain. Yeah, it is in all probability higher on your mind to not get hit.”
After her outcomes she mentioned it’s “100 occasions extra tempting” to stave off retirement.
“You get excellent news and it type of momentarily blots out the dangers since you’re like, ‘Ooh, I have been risking all of it for these years. And hey, it has been good. Like there’s nothing terrible but so what’s yet one more? What’s yet one more time?'” she mentioned.
“I wish to keep within the ring.”