This boxer is using science to track her brain health, and helping researchers better understand head impacts
CBC
Claire Hafner's chin is tucked in protectively behind her gloves. Just above them, her eyes are laser-focused, looking for an opening. Her arms shoot out like twin pistons, forcing the solid teen powerhouse she's sparring with to retreat against the ropes.
At 46, the Edmonton-based boxer is mulling over retirement but wants a Canadian title before she throws in the towel.
"It'll be hard to hang up the gloves without checking that box," she said.
That decision hangs largely on what a team of researchers in Las Vegas find when she meets up with them for exhaustive annual testing on her brain health.
Hafner is one of 17 Canadian athletes participating in a landmark study of the effects of head trauma on 900 living athletes, mostly from combat sports.
Only about 100 of the participants are women, so Hafner's brain may provide insights to help future women athletes, patients with neurodegenerative conditions, survivors of intimate partner violence and soldiers with head trauma.
The Professional Fighters Brain Health Study started in 2011 at the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas with just a few dozen athletes and a goal of examining the long-term effects of head trauma on athletes and its possible links to neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer's.
The cumulative research has generated numerous peer-reviewed papers on head trauma, including work on blood biomarkers of repetitive head injuries, a review of the impacts on male and female fighters' brains and changes in the brains of fighters after they retire.
The data is collected through private annual assessments of participating athletes. Those tests also provide each individual athlete with information about any deterioration of their memory, reaction times, balance or brain tissue.
"Boxing is a sport where you volunteer to be punched in the head. So I think there's less sympathy around head trauma," Hafner said.
After years of sparring and taking hits, she worries about the short term and cumulative effects on her brain, but usually not in the heat of the moment.
"I'm in the ring and I don't even realize I get hit. Like I have to watch my video back and be like, 'Oh, I took a big one,'" she said.
During her annual visits to the centre, which began in 2020, she undergoes a two-hour series of computerized tests and fills out a self-assessment on her moods and emotional wellbeing. Her blood is sent to the lab to look for increases in protein markers that could indicate head trauma. They are many of the same markers found in people with conditions like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
This time around, her results will determine whether she risks another year in the ring.
