Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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More than two million Americans have served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Of those that return, thousands carry invisible trauma that impact their daily lives. The effects of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) from explosive blasts are especially commonplace for these veterans, afflicting hundreds of thousands of service members.
New research explores how the number of explosions experienced by a veteran relates to lasting changes in the activity of specific brain cells in the cerebellum, an area traditionally associated with motor coordination. It is possible these changes contribute to some of the mood changes and cognitive complaints, such as memory loss, that service members report even years after exposure to combat.
In the new study a team based at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System and University of Washington—including clinical psychiatrist Elaine Peskind and molecular biologist David Cook of U.W. and VA Puget Sound molecular neurophysiologist James Meabon—worked with 33 participants who had been exposed to explosive blasts. The research team used functional imaging to observe brain activity and found that the more blast injuries former soldiers had sustained, the less activity occurred in their cerebellums. To look closer at the changes, the team assessed the cerebellums of mice that were also exposed to a blast and observed some breakdown in the blood–brain barrier as well as a loss of neurons called Purkinje cells, associated with the cerebellum. Further, structural imaging of some of the veterans found that blast injury had changed their brains’ pathways, although precisely what those findings mean remains harder to interpret.
The study appeared yesterday in Science Translational Medicine and study authors Peskind, Cook and Meabon spoke with Scientific American about the research.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
Veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan Show Brain Changes Related to Explosion Exposure
What changes, if any, will come of these studies?
New research explores how the number of explosions experienced by a veteran relates to lasting changes in the activity of specific brain cells in the cerebellum, an area traditionally associated with motor coordination. It is possible these changes contribute to some of the mood changes and cognitive complaints, such as memory loss, that service members report even years after exposure to combat.
In the new study a team based at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System and University of Washington—including clinical psychiatrist Elaine Peskind and molecular biologist David Cook of U.W. and VA Puget Sound molecular neurophysiologist James Meabon—worked with 33 participants who had been exposed to explosive blasts. The research team used functional imaging to observe brain activity and found that the more blast injuries former soldiers had sustained, the less activity occurred in their cerebellums. To look closer at the changes, the team assessed the cerebellums of mice that were also exposed to a blast and observed some breakdown in the blood–brain barrier as well as a loss of neurons called Purkinje cells, associated with the cerebellum. Further, structural imaging of some of the veterans found that blast injury had changed their brains’ pathways, although precisely what those findings mean remains harder to interpret.
The study appeared yesterday in Science Translational Medicine and study authors Peskind, Cook and Meabon spoke with Scientific American about the research.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
Veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan Show Brain Changes Related to Explosion Exposure
What changes, if any, will come of these studies?
