Reported on January 9 in Science Daily, researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University, in conjunction with the Resurrecting Lives Foundation, are examining the effects multiple blasts have on the brains of veterans. The goal is ultimately improving how traumatic brain injuries are diagnosed and treatment.
Researchers have been examining a group of 20 veterans from Ohio and Michigan with advanced MRI technology and psychological tests, looking at how multiple impacts influenced their brains’ structure and cognitive abilities. All veterans being studied spent time in Iraq or Afghanistan wars and display symptoms of repeat concussions, while 20 of their siblings or cousins act as controls.
The report focuses on Diffusion Tensor Imaging to identify injured parts of the brain, based on water molecules’ movement within and along the white matter’s brain fibers. Damage in this area is typically associated with cognitive impairments.
The study is expected to finish in February 2014. About it, Michael Lipton, M.D., Ph.D., said in a statement: “We hope that our research will lead to a more scientifically valid diagnostic technique — one that uses imaging to not only detect the underlying brain injury but reveal its severity. Such a technique could also objectively evaluate therapies aimed at healing the brain injuries responsible for concussions.”
The close conclusion of this study comes the same time Congress is evaluating the latest draft of the Traumatic Brain Injury Act, originally going into effect in 1996 and up for review in 2013. As of now, the act that allots funding toward federal programs focusing on treatment and prevention of TBIs has to be passed in the House and Senate before moving onto the President.
Trantolo & Trantolo’s team of lawyers represents traumatic brain injury cases in Connecticut, as well as veterans’ benefits claims that may involve this condition.
