News From the Cause
Groundbreaking research looks at how blasts injure brain (Stars and Stripes)
November 29, 2011
LANDSTUHL, Germany — During a firefight in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province in 2002, U.S. Army Maj. Kevin Kit Parker stood atop a hill awaiting a Medevac flight for an injured soldier when a bomb exploded several miles away.
He saw the bomb’s intense light first, then felt its shock waves ripple through his body.
“It felt like it was lifting my bowels, and I was quite far away,” Parker said.
Several years later, when he was working in bioengineering research at Harvard University, a friend of Parker’s suffered a severe traumatic brain injury, and Parker was reminded of his Kandahar experience. Parker chose to shift his focus from cardiac tissue to brain research after receiving encouragement from Col. Geoffrey Ling, a neurologist and program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.
Now a professor at Harvard, Parker has published groundbreaking research describing how blasts injure the brain. Gathering data directly on the battlefield from servicemembers who’ve been in close proximity to blasts, he said, will be key to understanding the devastating yet subtle damage caused.
The military currently is fielding several new technologies in Afghanistan to do exactly that. Now:
● Soldiers are being outfitted with high-tech gauges that can detect a blast’s severity and alert medics on site that a soldier has been exposed to shock waves.
● Armored vehicles are equipped with sensors that connect to each vehicle’s “black box,” which measures and stores information on blasts.
● Two advanced magnetic resonance imaging units have been sent to Afghanistan, marking the first time such sophisticated diagnostic machines have been used in a war zone. Until now, troops couldn’t get MRI scans of their brains before arriving at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, the main hub for servicemembers injured downrange.
Military doctors and researchers hope data collected using the technologies will lead to more precise diagnosis of mild traumatic brain injuries. The findings could also influence the design of helmets and body armor to protect against blast waves.
And they could help answer a long-standing question about these injuries: Can servicemembers who are near explosions, but don’t receive a blow to the head, still suffer brain damage? Click here to view more
