What is the Power Slap, this terrible slapping contest for the brain ?

Power slap : ce concours de baffes terrible pour le cerveau.

On social networks, power slap or slap fighting videos are enjoying huge success. In this "sport", participants slap each other and the strongest one wins. American researchers warn of the cerebral effects of this type of activity.

The Power slap or slap fighting, long underground, now attracts millions of viewers online. The competitors, separated by a waist-high podium, take turns exchanging powerful slaps to the face. The fight continues until one participant is knocked out or the judges declare a winner.

But what is the impact of these repeated slaps ? To assess the danger posed by these fights, a team from the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) viewed videos of fighting competitions and analyzed 333 slaps in great detail. They recorded the visible signs of concussion – ranging from a decrease in awareness of the environment to a complete loss of responsiveness – and analyzed the frequency with which these events occurred.

As a result, in more than half of the footage viewed, the scientists identified visible signs of concussion: a third showed that the participants had a blank stare; in a quarter of the footage, they were slow to get up after being knocked to the ground by a blow…

"Clinically, concussions can manifest themselves in different ways, but each of them can lead to short- or long-term disability", insists Dr. Nitin Agarwal, lead author of this work. Studies have also pointed to the risk of neurodegenerative diseases. “As a physician with a martial arts background, I remain concerned about the frequency of overt signs of concussion in these fighters.“

“A Neurologist's Worst Nightmare”

Dustin Hines specializes in neuroscience at the University of Nevada. He calls the power slap “a brain injury clinician's worst nightmare. The effect of concussions is cumulative. Burst eardrums, broken jaws, etc. are also common". Before concluding on this type of activity: "this makes me lose a little faith in humanity."