“ WAR ’ S NEW WOUNDS. A shock wave of brain injuries ”

That was the headline in a Washington Post article written by Ronald Glasser, published on Sunday, April 8, 2007. It reported a rather astounding statistic that applies to veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars: About 30% of soldiers in those conflicts have been directly exposed to IED or other powerful explosions. That exposure has resulted in diffuse physical trauma to their brains. To paraphrase Mr. Glasser, detonation of any powerful explosive generates a blast wave of high pressure that spreads out at about twice the speed of sound away from the explosion, and travels with great force over hundreds of yards. The initial shock wave physically “rattles” the brain within the skull; the huge volume of displaced air flooding back into the area of the explosion generates a second reverberatory wave that whiplashes the brain within the skull. Unlike conventional traumatic head injuries (for example, as you might receive in a car, motorcycle or bicycle accident), these powerful almost-instantaneous reverberatory pressure changes are thought to generate tiny gas bubbles in the substance of the brain that affect local neuron survival and neuronal connections. This cause of damage is currently untreatable through standard medical strategies, which generally target the bleeding and complex, secondary local tissue changes that accompany “standard” blunt-force or penetrating-wound trauma. The Washington Post article quotes army medical specialists who believ...
Source: On the Brain by Dr. Michael Merzenich, Ph.D. - Category: Neuroscience Authors: Tags: Aging and the Brain Brain Fitness Brain Trauma, Injury Cognitive impairments Source Type: blogs