Photo: Brain blast: Scientists found that people who suffered concussions as the result of a blast had a more diffuse pattern of brain injury (shown in red) than those whose concussions resulted from a blow to the head or an acceleration injury.Credit: David Moore et al.
From Technology Review:
New research shows that explosions trigger unique damage to brain tissue.
The blasts caused by improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan appear to inflict a fundamentally different type of brain damage than do more traditional sources of concussions, such as blunt trauma. The findings point toward new approaches to diagnosing and monitoring these injuries, which have been a huge concern to the military in recent years. The research also begins to resolve a controversy in brain-injury research--whether soldiers who are near an explosion but don't get hit in the head can still suffer a unique type of brain damage.
Read more ....
My Comment: If this report is true, it means that thousands of Iraqi/Afghan veterans may have experienced brain trauma that were never diagnosed .... or .... for those who were diagnosed, it may mean years of treatment and care that was never contemplated just a few years back. This is a very sobering report, and will be followed up by this blog in the future.
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