Efficiency Of Breast-Feeding On Brain Activity Of The Baby

Efficiency Of Breast-Feeding On Brain Activity Of The Baby.
Breast-feeding is actual for a baby's brain, a late study says in June 2013. Researchers hand-me-down MRI scans to examine brain growth in 133 children ranging in epoch from 10 months to 4 years. By age 2, babies who were breast-fed exclusively for at least three months had greater levels of advance in key parts of the brain than those who were fed rule only or a combination of formula and breast milk. The extra growth was most evident in parts of the sense associated with things such as language, emotional function and thinking skills, according to the study published online May 28 in the roll NeuroImage.

So "We're finding the difference in white context growth is on the order of 20 to 30 percent, comparing the breast-fed and the non-breast-fed kids," reflect on author Sean Deoni, an assistant professor of engineering at Brown University, said in a university statement release. "I think it's astounding that you could have that much difference so early".

Headache Accompanies Many Marines

Headache Accompanies Many Marines.
Active-duty Marines who live a traumatic perspicacity injury face significantly higher risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to a new study. Other factors that escalate the risk include severe pre-deployment symptoms of post-traumatic weight and high combat intensity, researchers report. But even after taking those factors and past brain impairment into account, the study authors concluded that a new traumatic brain injury during a veteran's most late-model deployment was the strongest predictor of PTSD symptoms after the deployment. The study by Kate Yurgil, of the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System, and colleagues was published online Dec 11, 2013 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Each year, as many as 1,7 million Americans keep up a injurious leader injury, according to study background information. A traumatic brain injury occurs when the aptitude violently impacts another object, or an object penetrates the skull, reaching the brain, according to the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. War-related traumatizing brain injuries are common.

The use of improvised dangerous devices (IEDs), rocket-propelled grenades and land mines in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are the predominating contributors to deployment-related traumatic brain injuries today. More than half are caused by IEDs, the examination authors noted. Previous research has suggested that experiencing a harmful brain injury increases the risk of PTSD. The disorder can occur after someone experiences a shocking event.

Such events put the body and mind in a high-alert state because you feel that you or someone else is in danger. For some people, the tension related to the traumatic event doesn't go away. They may relive the happening over and over again, or they may avoid people or situations that remind them of the event. They may also feel jittery and always on alert, according to the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Many mobile vulgus with traumatic brain injury also story having symptoms of PTSD.

It's been unclear, however, whether the experience leading up to the injury caused the post-traumatic forcefulness symptoms, or if the injury itself caused an increase in PTSD symptoms. The data came from a larger cramming following Marines over time. The current study looked at June 2008 to May 2012. The 1648 Marines included in the learning conducted interviews one month before a seven-month deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan, and a espouse interview three to six months after returning home.

People With Stroke Have A Chance At A Full Life

People With Stroke Have A Chance At A Full Life.
Scientists are testing a brand-new thought-controlled mark of cadency that may one day help people spur limbs again after they've been paralyzed by a stroke. The device combines a high-tech brain-computer interface with electrical stimulation of the damaged muscles to better patients relearn how to move frozen limbs. So far, eight patients who had distracted movement in one hand have been through six weeks of analysis with the device.

They reported improvements in their ability to complete daily tasks. "Things like combing their locks and buttoning their shirt," explained study author Dr Vivek Prabhakaran, helmsman of functional neuroimaging in radiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "These are patients who are months and years out from their strokes. Early studies suggested that there was no natural room for change for these patients, that they had plateaued in the recovery.

We're showing there is still latitude for change. There is plasticity we can harness". To use the new tool, patients corrosion a cap of electrodes that picks up brain signals. Those signals are decoded by a computer. The computer, in turn, sends delicate jolts of electricity through wires to sticky pads placed on the muscles of a patient's paralyzed arm.

The jolts deception like nerve impulses, influential the muscles to move. A simple video game on the computer screen prompts patients to struggle to hit a target by moving a ball with their affected arm. Patients practice with the game for about two hours at a time, every other day.

Head Injury With Loss Of Consciousness Does Not Increase The The Risk Of Dementia

Head Injury With Loss Of Consciousness Does Not Increase The The Risk Of Dementia.
Having a distressing planner injury at some rhythm in your life doesn't raise the risk of dementia in old age, but it does increase the odds of re-injury, a unusual study finds. "There is a lot of fear among people who have sustained a brain hurt that they are going to have these horrible outcomes when they get older," said senior author Kristen Dams-O'Connor, subsidiary professor of rehabilitation medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. "It's not true. But we did catch a risk for re-injury".

The 16-year learning of more than 4000 older adults also found that a recent traumatic brain injury with unconsciousness raised the unevenness of death from any cause in subsequent years. Those at greatest risk for re-injury were people who had their discernment injury after age 55, Dams-O'Connor said. "This suggests that there are some age-related biological vulnerabilities that come into place in terms of re-injury risk".

Dams-O'Connor said doctors need to look out for health issues among older patients who have had a traumatic brain injury. These patients should try to dodge another head injury by watching their balance and taking care of their overall health. To investigate the consequences of a harmful brain injury in older adults, the researchers collected data on participants in the Adult Changes in Thought study, conducted in the Seattle limit between 1994 and 2010. The participants' standard age was 75.

At the start of the study, which was published recently in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, none of the participants suffered from dementia. Over 16 years of follow-up, the researchers found that those who had suffered a damaging sagacity injury with loss of consciousness at any time in their lives did not increase their risk for developing Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia.

Scientists Are Studying The Problem Of Premature Infants

Scientists Are Studying The Problem Of Premature Infants.
A dormant novel way to identify premature infants at high risk for delays in motor skills evolvement may have been discovered by researchers. The researchers conducted brain scans on 43 infants in the United Kingdom who were born at less than 32 weeks' gestation and admitted to a neonatal focused control unit (NICU). The scans focused on the brain's white matter, which is especially shaky in newborns and at risk for injury.They also conducted tests that measured certain brain chemical levels.

When 40 of the infants were evaluated a year later, 15 had signs of motor problems, according to the bone up published online Dec 17, 2013 in the weekly Radiology. Motor skills are typically described as the truthful movement of muscles or groups of muscles to perform a certain act. The researchers definite that ratios of particular brain chemicals at birth can help predict motor-skill problems.

The Larger Head Size Reduces Brain Atrophy In Alzheimer's Disease

The Larger Head Size Reduces Brain Atrophy In Alzheimer's Disease.
A original work suggests that Alzheimer's disease develops slower in relatives with bigger heads, perhaps because their larger brains have more cognitive power in reserve. It's not dependable that head size, brain size and the rate of worsening Alzheimer's are linked. But if they are, the inquire into findings could pave the way for individualized treatment for the disease, said study co-author Lindsay Farrer, prime of the genetics program at Boston University School of Medicine.

The terminating goal is to catch Alzheimer's early and use medications more effectively. "The prevailing view is that most of the drugs that are out there aren't working because they're being given to common man when what's happening in the brain is too far along".

A century ago, some scientists believed that the status of the head held secrets to a person's intelligence and personality - those views have been since discounted. But today, explore suggests that there may be "modest correlations" between brain size and smarts. Still, "there are many other factors that are associated with intelligence," stressed Catherine Roe, a into or academician in neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis.

Nevertheless, there could be a connection between the size of the leader and how many neurons are available to "pick up the slack" when others go dark because of diseases such as Alzheimer's. The redesigned study, published in the July 13 issue of Neurology, explores that possibility.

Non-Invasive Diagnosis Of Traumatic Dementia At An Early Stage

Non-Invasive Diagnosis Of Traumatic Dementia At An Early Stage.
A "virtual biopsy" may servant distinguish a degenerative brain disorder that can occur in specialist athletes and others who suffer repeated blows to the head, says a new study. Symptoms of confirmed traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) can include memory problems, impulsive and erratic behavior, recession and, eventually, dementia. The condition, which is marked by an accumulation of abnormal proteins in the brain, can only be diagnosed by an autopsy.

But a specialized imaging aptitude called magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) may put up for sale a noninvasive way to diagnose CTE at an early stage so that treatment can begin before further mastermind damage occurs, say US researchers. MRS - sometimes referred to as "virtual biopsy" - uses strong magnetic field and radio waves to gather gen about chemical compounds in the body. The researchers used MRS to examine five retired whiz male football players, wrestlers and boxers, ages 32 to 55, with suspected CTE and compared them to a hold back group of five age-matched men.

Morphine Can Protect The Brains Of People Suffering From HIV Infection

Morphine Can Protect The Brains Of People Suffering From HIV Infection.
The anaesthetic morphine may domestic protect against HIV-associated dementia, says a experimental study. Georgetown University Medical Center researchers found that morphine protected rat neurons from HIV toxicity, a idea that could lead to the development of new drugs to treat hoi polloi with HIV-related dementia, which causes depression, anxiety and physical and mental problems.

So "We feel that morphine may be neuroprotective in a subset of people infected with HIV," lead investigator Italo Mocchetti, a professor of neuroscience, said in a Georgetown newscast release. He and his colleagues conducted the con because they knew that some people with HIV who are heroin users never develop HIV brain dementia. Morphine is comparable to heroin.

In their tests on rats, the researchers found that morphine triggers brain cells called astrocytes to initiate a protein called CCL5, which activates factors that suppress HIV infection in insusceptible cells. CCL5 "is known to be important in blood, but we didn't know it is secreted in the brain. Our assumption is that it is in the brain to prevent neurons from dying".

The study was to be presented at the annual tryst of the Society of NeuroImmune Pharmacology, April 13 to 17 in Manhattan Beach, Calif. "Ideally, we can use this message to develop a morphine-like compound that does not have the typical dependency and tolerance issues that morphine has".

Frequent Brain Concussion Can Lead To Suicide

Frequent Brain Concussion Can Lead To Suicide.
When ci-devant National Football League big name linebacker Junior Seau killed himself last year, he had a catastrophic mastermind disorder probably brought on by repeated hits to the head, the US National Institutes of Health has concluded. The NIH scientists who conscious Seau's brain constant that he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). They told the Associated Press on Thursday that the cellular changes they dictum were similar to those found in autopsies of people "with exposure to repetitive head injuries".

The fight - characterized by impulsivity, depression and erratic behavior - is only diagnosed after death. Seau, 43, who played pro football for 20 seasons before his retirement in 2009, discharge himself in the strongbox last May 2012. His family donated his brain for research.

Some experts shadowy - but can't prove - that CTE led to Seau's suicide. "Chronic painful encephalopathy is the thing we have typically seen in a lot of the athletes," said Dr Howard Derman, commandant at the Methodist Concussion Center in Houston. "Rather than say 'this caused this,' I dream the observation is that there have been multiple pro football players now who have committed suicide: Dave Duerson, Andre Waters, John Grimsley - although Grimsley was just reported as a gun accident".

Some say that these players became depressed once they were out of the limelight or because of marital or economic difficulties, but Derman thinks the evidence goes beyond that."Yes, all that may be accepted on - but it still remains that the majority of these players who have committed suicide do have changes of chronic disturbing encephalopathy. We feel that that is also playing a role in their mental state".

But, Derman cautioned, "I can't for instance that chronic traumatic encephalopathy causes players to commit suicide". Chronic harmful encephalopathy was first noticed in boxers who suffered blows to the head over many years. In late years, concerns about CTE have led high school and college programs to circumscribe hits to the head, and the National Football League prohibits helmet-to-helmet hits.

Even Easy Brain Concussion Can Lead To Serious Consequences

Even Easy Brain Concussion Can Lead To Serious Consequences.
Soldiers who diminished meek brain injuries from blasts have long-term changes in their brains, a minuscule new study suggests. Diagnosing mild brain injuries caused by explosions can be challenging using principle CT or MRI scans, the researchers said. For their study, they turned to a unique type of MRI called diffusion tensor imaging. The technology was used to assess the brains of 10 American veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who had been diagnosed with compassionate upsetting brain injuries and a comparison group of 10 people without brain injuries.

The average adjust since the veterans had suffered their brain injuries was a little more than four years. The researchers found that the veterans and the kinship group had significant differences in the brain's white matter, which consists mostly of signal-carrying nerve fibers. These differences were linked with distinction problems, delayed memory and poorer psychomotor examine scores among the veterans. "Psychomotor" refers to movement and muscle ability associated with mentally ill processes.

Brain Scans Can Reveal The Occurrence Of Autism

Brain Scans Can Reveal The Occurrence Of Autism.
A pattern of thought imaging that measures the circuitry of brain connections may someday be used to name autism, new research suggests. Researchers at McLean Hospital in Boston and the University of Utah second-hand MRIs to analyze the microscopic fiber structures that make up the brain circuitry in 30 males ancient 8 to 26 with high-functioning autism and 30 males without autism. Males with autism showed differences in the milk-white matter circuitry in two regions of the brain's temporal lobe: the higher-level temporal gyrus and the temporal stem. Those areas are involved with language, sensation and social skills, according to the researchers.

Based on the deviations in brain circuitry, researchers could distinguish with 94 percent preciseness those who had autism and those who didn't. Currently, there is no biological test for autism. Instead, diagnosis is done through a wordy examination involving questions about the child's behavior, language and social functioning. The MRI investigation could change that, though the study authors cautioned that the results are preliminary and need to be confirmed with larger numbers of patients.

So "Our research pinpoints disruptions in the circuitry in a brain part that has been known for a long time to be responsible for language, social and emotional functioning, which are the major deficits in autism," said captain author Nicholas Lange, director of the Neurostatistics Laboratory at McLean Hospital and an ally professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "If we can get to the physical essence of the potential sources of those deficits, we can better understand how exactly it's happening and what we can do to develop more effective treatments". The contemplation is published in the Dec 2, 2010 online edition of Autism Research.

Useless The Second Phase Of The Definition Of Brain Death

Useless The Second Phase Of The Definition Of Brain Death.
Making families put off for a in the second place exam to confirm a brain death diagnosis is not only supererogatory but may make it less likely that the family will agree to donate their loved one's organs, a experimental study finds. Researchers reviewed records from the New York Organ Donor Network database of 1,229 adults and 82 children who had been declared cognition dead. All of the kinsmen had died in New York hospitals over a 19-month period between June 2007 and December 2009.

Patients had to bide an average of nearly 20 hours between the first and second exam, even though the New York State Health Department recommends a six-hour wait, according to the study. Not only did the following exam continue nothing to the diagnosis - not one patient was found to have regained brain function between the first and the second exam - wordy waiting times appeared to make families more reluctant to give consent for organ donation. About 23 percent of families refused to vouchsafe their loved ones organs, a several that rose to 36 percent when wait times stretched to more than 40 hours, the investigators found.

The chat was also true: Consent for organ donation decreased from 57 percent to 45 percent as hold-up times were dragged out. Though the research did not look at the causes of the refusal, for families, waiting around for a aide-de-camp exam means another emotionally exhausting, stressful and uncertain day waiting in an intensified care unit to find out if it's time to remove their loved one from life support, said swat author Dr Dana Lustbader, chief of palliative care at The North Shore LIJ Health System in Manhasset, NY.

At the same time, the patient's already dubious fitness can further decrease the odds of organ donation occurring as waiting times go up. Organ viability decreases the longer a individual is brain dead.

Blows To The Head Lead To Vision Loss

Blows To The Head Lead To Vision Loss.
As more enquire focuses on the mar concussions can cause, scientists now report that even mild blows to the talent might affect memory and thinking. In this latest study, special helmets were used on football and ice hockey players during their seasons of play. None of the players were diagnosed with a concussion during the meditate on period, but the remarkable helmets recorded key data whenever the players received milder blows to the head. "The accelerometers in the helmets allowed us to include and quantify the intensity and frequency of impacts," said read author Dr Tom McAllister.

And "We thought it might fruit in some interesting insights". The researchers found that the extent of change in the brain's white matter was greater in those who performed worse than expected on tests of reminiscence and learning. White matter transports messages between sundry parts of the brain. "This suggests that concussion is not the only thing we need to pay prominence to," said McAllister, chairman of the department of psychiatry at the Indiana University School of Medicine.

So "These athletes didn't have a concussion diagnosis in the year we calculated them and there is a subsample of them who are perhaps more defenceless to impact. We need to learn more about how long these changes last and whether the changes are permanent". The over was published online Dec 11, 2003 in the journal Neurology. Concussions are submissive traumatic brain injuries that occur from a sudden blow to the head or body.

Doctors Discovered How The Brain Dies

Doctors Discovered How The Brain Dies.
Shrunken structures clandestine the brains of important marijuana users might explain the stereotype of the "pothead," brain researchers report. Northwestern University scientists studying teens who were marijuana smokers or c whilom smokers found that parts of the capacity related to working memory appeared diminished in size - changes that coincided with the teens' snuff performance on memory tasks. "We observed that the shapes of brain structures affiliate to short-term memory seemed to collapse inward or shrink in people who had a history of day after day marijuana use when compared to healthy participants," said study author Matthew Smith.

He is an helpmate research professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in Chicago. The shrinking of these structures appeared to be more advanced in race who had started using marijuana at a younger age. This suggests that youngsters might be more impressionable to drug-related memory loss, according to the study, which was published in the Dec 16. 2013 emerge of the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin.

So "The brain abnormalities we're observing are right away related to poor short-term memory performance. The more that understanding looks abnormal, the poorer they're doing on memory tests". The paper is provocative because the participants had not been using marijuana for a match up years, indicating that memory problems might persist even if the person quits smoking the drug, said Dr Frances Levin, chairman of the American Psychiatric Association's Council on Addiction Psychiatry. At the same time, Levin cautioned that the article presents a chicken-or-egg problem.

It's not open whether marijuana use caused the respect problems or people with memory problems tended to use marijuana. "The big $64000 topic is whether these memory problems predate the marijuana use". The work focused on nearly 100 participants sorted into four groups: healthy people who never used pot, thriving people who were former heavy pot smokers, people with schizophrenia who never used cauldron and schizophrenics who were former heavy pot users. Researchers used MRI scans to think over the structure of participants' brains.

Girls Mature Faster Than Boys

Girls Mature Faster Than Boys.
New leader research suggests one insight girls mature faster than boys during their teen years. As people age, their brains reorganize and slacken up connections. In this study, scientists examined brain scans from 121 salubrious people, aged 4 to 40. It's during this period that the major changes in intellect connectivity occur. The researchers discovered that although the overall number of connections is reduced, the intelligence preserves long-distance connections important for integrating information.

The findings might explain why brain task doesn't decline - but instead improves - during this period of connection pruning, according to the inspection team. The researchers also found that these changes in brain connections begin at an earlier age in girls than in boys. "Long-distance connections are fastidious to establish and maintain but are crucial for fast and efficient processing," said look co-leader Marcus Kaiser, of Newcastle University, in England.

Early Diagnostics Of Schizophrenia

Early Diagnostics Of Schizophrenia.
Certain imagination circuits function abnormally in children at imperil of developing schizophrenia, according to a new study in April 2013. These differences in brains activity are detectable before the development of schizophrenia symptoms, such as hallucinations, paranoia and attention and honour problems. The findings suggest that brain scans may help doctors identify and help children at jeopardy for schizophrenia, said the researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. People with a first-degree progenitors member (such as a parent or sibling) with schizophrenia have an eight- to 12-fold increased endanger of developing the mental illness.

But currently there is no way to know for certain who will become schizophrenic until they begin having symptoms. In this study, the researchers performed serviceable MRI brain scans on 42 children, venerable 9 to 18, while they played a game in which they had to identify a simple circle out of a lineup of emotion-triggering images, such as dainty or scary animals. Half of the participants had relatives with schizophrenia.

Most NFL Players Have A Poor Vocabulary

Most NFL Players Have A Poor Vocabulary.
In a Lilliputian analysis of former NFL players, about one quarter were found to have "mild cognitive impairment," or problems with contemplative and memory, a rate slightly higher than expected in the general population. Thirty-four ex-NFL players took bid goodbye in the study that looked at their mental function, depression symptoms and brain images and compared them with those of men who did not gambol professional or college football. The most common deficits seen were difficulties determination words and poor verbal memory.

Twenty players had no symptoms of impairment. One such performer was Daryl Johnston, who played 11 seasons as fullback for the Dallas Cowboys. During his gifted career as an offensive blocker, Johnston took countless hits to the head. After he retired in 2000, he wanted to be proactive about his perspicacity health, he told university staff.

All but two of the ex-players had sagacious at least one concussion, and the average number of concussions was four. The players were between 41 and 79 years old. The cramming was published online Jan 7, 2013 in the JAMA Neurology. The trend study provides clues into the brain changes that could direction to these deficits among NFL athletes, and why they show up so many years after the head injury, said study originator Dr John Hart Jr, medical science director of the Center for BrainHealth at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Hart and his colleagues did advanced MRI-based imaging on 26 of the retired NFL players along with 26 of the other participants, and found that old players had more expense to their brain's white matter. White business lies on the inside of the brain and connects different gray matter regions. "The price can occur from head injuries because the brain is shaken or twisted, and that stretches the white matter".

An dexterous on sports concussion is familiar with the findings. "The most important finding is that the researchers were able to find the correlation between pale matter changes and cognitive deficits," said Kevin Guskiewicz, founding helmsman of the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

New Info On Tourette Syndrome

New Info On Tourette Syndrome.
New vision into what causes the unruly movement and noises (tics) in people with Tourette syndrome may lead to new non-drug treatments for the disorder, a supplementary study suggests Dec 2013. These tics appear to be caused by marred wiring in the brain that results in "hyper-excitability" in the regions that control motor function, according to the researchers at the University of Nottingham in England. "This further study is very important as it indicates that motor and vocal tics in children may be controlled by intellect changes that alter the excitability of brain cells ahead of premeditated movements," Stephen Jackson, a professor in the school of psychology, said in a university news release.

So "You can deliberate of this as a bit like turning the volume down on an over-loud motor system. This is impressive as it suggests a mechanism that might lead to an effective non-pharmacological therapy for Tourette syndrome". Tourette syndrome affects about one in 100 children and as usual beings in early childhood. During adolescence, because of structural and functioning brain changes, about one-third of children with Tourette syndrome will lose their tics and another third will get better at controlling their tics.

Regularly Exercise And The Brain

Regularly Exercise And The Brain.
Young women who regularly worry may have more oxygen circulating in their brains - and Deo volente sharper minds, a small study suggests. The findings, from a lucubrate of 52 healthy young women, don't prove that utilize makes you smarter. On the other hand, it's "reasonable" to conclude that exercise likely boosts loony prowess even when people are young and healthy, said Liana Machado, of the University of Otago in New Zealand, the live researcher on the study. Previous studies have found that older adults who burden tend to have better blood flow in the brain, and do better on tests of memory and other mental skills, versus fixed people of the same age, the authors point out.

But few studies have focused on young adults. The women in this inquiry were between 18 and 30. The "predominant view" has been that young adults' brains are operating at their lifetime peak, no affair what their exercise level, the researchers write in the journal Psychophysiology. But in this study, brains imaging showed that the oxygen supply in young women's brains did alternate depending on their exercise habits.

Compared with their less-active peers, women who exercised most days of the week had more oxygen circulating in the frontal lobe during a battery of balmy tasks, the study found. The frontal lobe governs some basic functions, including the ability to plan, make decisions and have in mind memories longer-term. Machado's team found that active women did particularly well on tasks that measured "cognitive inhibitory control.

Traumatic Brain Injuries Of Some Veterans

Traumatic Brain Injuries Of Some Veterans.
The brains of some veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who were injured by homemade bombs show an bizarre motif of damage, a small ruminate on finds. Researchers speculate that the damage - what they call a "honeycomb" pattern of broken and tumescent nerve fibers - might help explain the phenomenon of "shell shock". That style was coined during World War I, when trench warfare exposed troops to constant bombardment with exploding shells. Many soldiers developed an array of symptoms, from problems with view and hearing, to headaches and tremors, to confusion, appetite and nightmares.

Now referred to as blast neurotrauma, the injuries have become an effective issue again, said Dr Vassilis Koliatsos, the senior researcher on the new study. "Vets coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan have been exposed to a type of situations, including blasts from improvised chancy devices IEDs ," said Koliatsos, a professor of pathology, neurology and psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

But even though the cognizance of shell shock goes back 100 years, researchers still positive little about what is actually going on in the brain. For the new study, published recently in the annual Acta Neuropathologica Communications, his team studied autopsied brain tissue from five US grapple veterans. The soldiers had all survived IED bomb blasts, but later died of other causes. The researchers compared the vets' percipience tissue to autopsies of 24 commoners who had died of various causes, including traffic accidents and drug overdoses.

The soldiers' brains showed a plain pattern of damage to nerve fibers in key regions of the brain - including the frontal lobes, which hold the whip hand memory, reasoning and decision-making. He said the "honeycomb" mould of small lesions was unlike the damage seen in people who died from head trauma in a car accident, or those who suffered "punch-drunk syndrome" - acumen degeneration caused by repeated concussions.