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GSN Magazine June 2016 Digital Edition

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Hazmat Science and Public Policy with George Lane<br />

had the same pattern of scarring in<br />

the same places, which appeared to<br />

correspond to the brain’s centers for<br />

sleep, cognition and other classic<br />

brain-injury trouble spots.<br />

Then Perl made an even more surprising<br />

discovery. He examined the<br />

brains of two veterans who died just<br />

days after their blast exposure and<br />

found embryonic versions of the<br />

same injury, in the same areas. The<br />

development of the injuries seemed<br />

to match the time elapsed since the<br />

blast event. Perl compared the damaged<br />

brains with those of people<br />

who suffered ordinary concussions<br />

with others who had drug addictions,<br />

which can also cause visible<br />

brain changes, and a control group<br />

with no injuries at all. None in control<br />

groups had the mold-like pattern.<br />

Perl’s findings were recently published<br />

in the scientific journal “The<br />

Lancet Neurology”. 6 His discovery<br />

may solve a medical mystery first<br />

observed in the trenches of World<br />

War I, first called “shell shock”, then<br />

“combat fatigue”, and now “Post-<br />

Traumatic Stress Disorder”, “PTSD”.<br />

In each case, it was considered psychic<br />

rather than a physical affliction.<br />

Only recently have neurologists,<br />

physicists, and senior officers<br />

pushed back at military generals<br />

that had told soldiers diagnosed<br />

with PTSD to “deal with it,” fed<br />

them pills, and then sent them back<br />

into battle untreated.<br />

If Perl’s discovery is confirmed by<br />

other scientists, and if short-term<br />

signatures caused by blast are confirmed<br />

to be a pattern of scarring in<br />

the brain, there could be significant<br />

implications for both the military<br />

and the medical community. Much<br />

of what has been described as emotional<br />

trauma may be reinterpreted,<br />

and many veterans may demand<br />

recognition of an injury that cannot<br />

be definitively diagnosed until after<br />

death. There will be calls for more<br />

research, drug trials, better helmets,<br />

and expanded veteran care. The disturbing<br />

message behind Perl’s discovery<br />

is that modern warfare destroys<br />

soldier’s brains.<br />

A blast wave generated by an explosion<br />

starts with a single pulse of<br />

increased air pressure that lasts a<br />

few milliseconds. Negative pressure,<br />

or suction, immediately follows the<br />

positive wave. The duration of the<br />

blast waves depends on the type of<br />

explosive and the distance from the<br />

point of detonation. The blast wave<br />

expands as a sphere of compressed<br />

gases, which displaces an equal volume<br />

of air at a high velocity. It compresses<br />

air and then falls rapidly to<br />

negative pressure in milliseconds,<br />

generated by the mass displacement<br />

of air by expanding gases. It may accelerate<br />

to hurricane force. The blast<br />

16<br />

wave is the main cause of blast injury.<br />

The effects of blast on the human<br />

body are complicated. People who<br />

have been exposed to blasts at close<br />

range describe it as overpowering.<br />

Many soldiers do not recall the moment<br />

of impact, lost in the flash of<br />

light, and the deafening sound or<br />

unconsciousness. Those who do remember<br />

it recall it as intensely violent.<br />

Trinitrotoluene, or TNT, was<br />

first used in artillery shells by the<br />

German Army in 1902. These weapons<br />

were used by all sides soon after<br />

the First World War started in 1914.<br />

TNT created a level of violence far<br />

beyond the cavalry charges of previous<br />

wars.<br />

British doctor Dr. Frederick Mott

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