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This is some good news. Hope more commissions move towards this sorta thing.
The Nevada Athletic Commission will require all licensed fighters in the Silver State, including professional boxers and mixed martial athletes, to undergo regular brain health testing, officials are expected to announce Tuesday in Washington.
Dr. Charles Bernick, associate director of the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, will be surrounded by notables such as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Spike TV President Kevin Kay, Bellator MMA President Scott Coker and boxing great Larry Holmes as he makes the announcement on Capitol Hill.
“Nevada has always been at the forefront of fighter safety, and we’re proud and excited to be implementing this policy,” Nevada Athletic Commission Executive Director Bob Bennett said. “It’s not going to cost the fighters anything, and it takes 15 minutes.”
The athletes will be required to undergo assessments using the Cleveland Clinic C3 application, a testing tool in the Ruvo Center’s Professional Fighters Brain Health Study, Bernick said.
The health study, established in 2011, uses C3 to assess brain health and function in about 600 participants, all of whom are active or retired fighters, according to a news release.
“We’re extremely pleased by the commission’s decision to require regular brain health testing using the C3 app in Nevada, which was a decision influenced largely by data collected from the Professional Fighters Brain Health Study,” Bernick said in the release.
Among the findings of the study so far are brain changes that researchers say correlate with differences in testing performance.
Researchers also believe they may be able to use PET scans to detect the protein tau, which builds up during progressive degeneration of brain tissue and appears to be involved in chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, according to Bernick and Boston University’s CTE Center.
Confirmation of the progressive brain disease for now is done only during postmortem analysis.
Public attention to CTE has spiked in recent years, due in part to a lawsuit by thousands of former players and their families against the National Football League over brain injuries.
The announcement of Nevada’s new regulation, which isn’t expected to take effect until June or July, coincides with the announcement of a donation to the Ruvo Center by Bellator and the Premier Boxing Champions.
A spokeswoman for the Ruvo Center declined to disclose the amount of the donation.
Fighters and officials not expected to be in attendance at Tuesday’s event are speaking out in favor of the new rule.
“It is our collective responsibility as leaders to be at the forefront and always challenging the status quo in order to elevate the safety standards so critical to the future of combat sports,” UFC Chief Operating Officer Ike Lawrence Epstein said.
World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Jessie Vargas also threw his support behind the regulation.
“It’s very important to protect the athlete,” he said. “You can’t argue with looking out for someone’s health.”
McCain, a former boxer, applauded the efforts of the organizations involved and said they will contribute to fighters’ long-term health.
Bob Arum, chairman of boxing promotions company Top Rank, said everyone in the boxing world should be on-board with the new regulation, which he called a win-win situation.
“Nobody wants to see punch-drunk fighters. We have 100 percent confidence in the Lou Ruvo Center,” Arum said. “It will give the fighters a baseline so if there’s a deterioration in years to come, they can identify it.”
Dr. Charles Bernick, associate director of the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, will be surrounded by notables such as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Spike TV President Kevin Kay, Bellator MMA President Scott Coker and boxing great Larry Holmes as he makes the announcement on Capitol Hill.
“Nevada has always been at the forefront of fighter safety, and we’re proud and excited to be implementing this policy,” Nevada Athletic Commission Executive Director Bob Bennett said. “It’s not going to cost the fighters anything, and it takes 15 minutes.”
The athletes will be required to undergo assessments using the Cleveland Clinic C3 application, a testing tool in the Ruvo Center’s Professional Fighters Brain Health Study, Bernick said.
The health study, established in 2011, uses C3 to assess brain health and function in about 600 participants, all of whom are active or retired fighters, according to a news release.
“We’re extremely pleased by the commission’s decision to require regular brain health testing using the C3 app in Nevada, which was a decision influenced largely by data collected from the Professional Fighters Brain Health Study,” Bernick said in the release.
Among the findings of the study so far are brain changes that researchers say correlate with differences in testing performance.
Researchers also believe they may be able to use PET scans to detect the protein tau, which builds up during progressive degeneration of brain tissue and appears to be involved in chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, according to Bernick and Boston University’s CTE Center.
Confirmation of the progressive brain disease for now is done only during postmortem analysis.
Public attention to CTE has spiked in recent years, due in part to a lawsuit by thousands of former players and their families against the National Football League over brain injuries.
The announcement of Nevada’s new regulation, which isn’t expected to take effect until June or July, coincides with the announcement of a donation to the Ruvo Center by Bellator and the Premier Boxing Champions.
A spokeswoman for the Ruvo Center declined to disclose the amount of the donation.
Fighters and officials not expected to be in attendance at Tuesday’s event are speaking out in favor of the new rule.
“It is our collective responsibility as leaders to be at the forefront and always challenging the status quo in order to elevate the safety standards so critical to the future of combat sports,” UFC Chief Operating Officer Ike Lawrence Epstein said.
World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Jessie Vargas also threw his support behind the regulation.
“It’s very important to protect the athlete,” he said. “You can’t argue with looking out for someone’s health.”
McCain, a former boxer, applauded the efforts of the organizations involved and said they will contribute to fighters’ long-term health.
Bob Arum, chairman of boxing promotions company Top Rank, said everyone in the boxing world should be on-board with the new regulation, which he called a win-win situation.
“Nobody wants to see punch-drunk fighters. We have 100 percent confidence in the Lou Ruvo Center,” Arum said. “It will give the fighters a baseline so if there’s a deterioration in years to come, they can identify it.”
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