All you need is to see a brain scan lighting up a room to ponder — just for a few moments — exactly what it is we’re looking at. Last week, in the lead up to UFC Fight Night 82, the media on hand was invited to the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health — a branch of the Cleveland Clinic in downtown Las Vegas— to take a look at a couple. There were a few takers.
Next to the glowing images that Dr. Charles Bernick tried to break down to a layman’s level of understanding was an MRI scan machine itself, in which middleweight champion Luke Rockhold and former light heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin were asked the day prior to test the boundaries of their own claustrophobia, submerged in the dire truth-telling tube, while researchers checked to see if anybody’s thalamus was noticeably shrinking.