This study is a few years old but came to my attention today when I was reading this recent article arguing that children under 15 should not be allowed to compete in full contact Muay Thai. In the article the authors cited a 2018 study of brain trauma in children who participate in Muay Thai.
In the study, titled Child muaythai boxing: conflict of health and culture, the researchers took MRI’s and conducted neuropsychological testing of hundreds of children who participate in Muay Thai. They then age matched and socioeconomically matched these athletes with children that did not participate in Muay Thai. The results found white matter abnormalities and old microbleeds in the fighter group. Cognitively the researchers found that the average IQ scores were lower with the fighters and that “The average IQ of the boxer was clearly decreased, and progressively decreased with longer years of boxing experiences.“
The abstract reads as follows:
Muaythai (Thai boxing, the national martial art of Thailand) has become increasingly popular worldwide. Many Thai children start training and being in boxing matches at very early ages; therefore they may be at risk for cognitive impairment, memory dysfunction, or brain disorders later in lives due to repeated brain injuries.
To investigate for scientific evidences, neuropsychological tests, MRI, functional MRI (fMRI), and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) were conducted on 108, 165, and 60 child boxers with <2, 2–5, and >5 years of boxing experiences, respectively, as well as 200 age-matched normal controls (same socioeconomic status).
Compared to the controls, over the increasing years of boxing experiences, decreased DTI FA (indicating white matter damage), increased DTI MD (representing loosening of the brain tissue) and increased MRI R2* (indicating accumulation of old blood product), decreased memory-task fMRI activations (suggesting brain injury along the limbic circuit), and decreased motor-task fMRI activations (reflecting better motor skill) were statistically significantly found in child boxers. However, increased fMRI activations were discovered at right motor cortex of the brain, perhaps, because the child boxers were able to better use left hands. The average IQ of the boxer was clearly decreased, and progressively decreased with longer years of boxing experiences.
Combat Sports Law 