Study shows PTSD may be more physical than psychological
Since 2012, neuropathologist Daniel Perl has advocated for this theory: specifically that blast waves caused physical damage at the intersection of the brain's gray matter and white matter , where microscopic analysis of the brains of former soldiers who suffered from PTSD reveals a "brown dust" of scarring, in regions that are neuroanatomically associated with sleep and cognition.
Perl and his team examined brains of service members who died well after their blast exposure, including a highly decorated Special Operations Forces soldier who committed suicide. All of them had the same pattern of scarring in the same places, which appeared to correspond to the brain's centers for sleep, cognition and other classic brain-injury trouble spots.
Ibolja Cernak is a Bosnian scientist who conducted a study on 1,300 veterans of the Bosnian/Serbian conflict, which confirmed much of Perl's hypothesis. Adherents of this hypothesis believe that the action of a blast weakens the material connections at their intersections -- perhaps by compressing the body and forcing blood into the brain, putting a "shearing load on brain tissues."
Perl and his team examined brains of service members who died well after their blast exposure, including a highly decorated Special Operations Forces soldier who committed suicide. All of them had the same pattern of scarring in the same places, which appeared to correspond to the brain's centers for sleep, cognition and other classic brain-injury trouble spots.
Ibolja Cernak is a Bosnian scientist who conducted a study on 1,300 veterans of the Bosnian/Serbian conflict, which confirmed much of Perl's hypothesis. Adherents of this hypothesis believe that the action of a blast weakens the material connections at their intersections -- perhaps by compressing the body and forcing blood into the brain, putting a "shearing load on brain tissues."