A legacy of war that is really frightening

Veterans and Brain Disease

In people with C.T.E. [chronic traumatic encephalopathy], an abnormal form of a protein accumulates and eventually destroys cells throughout the brain, including the frontal and temporal lobes. Those are areas that regulate impulse control, judgment, multitasking, memory and emotions.

That Marine was the first Iraq veteran found to have C.T.E., but experts have since autopsied a dozen or more other veterans’ brains and have repeatedly found C.T.E. The findings raise a critical question: Could blasts from bombs or grenades have a catastrophic impact similar to those of repeated concussions in sports, and could the rash of suicides among young veterans be a result?

“P.T.S.D. in a high-risk cohort like war veterans could actually be a physical disease from permanent brain damage, not a psychological disease,” said Bennet Omalu, the neuropathologist who examined the veteran. Dr. Omalu published an article about the 27-year-old veteran as a sentinel case in Neurosurgical Focus, a peer-reviewed medical journal.

The discovery of C.T.E. in veterans could be stunningly important. Sadly, it could also suggest that the worst is yet to come, for C.T.E. typically develops in midlife, decades after exposure. If we are seeing C.T.E. now in war veterans, we may see much more in the coming years.

Given the number of veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the multiple tours of duty, this could mean serious complications in coming years. Already it is being linked to the rates of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and suicide. The nature of the wars fought in these arenas is that repeated blasts mean repeated concussions at a unprecedented rate. The military is trying to be proactive about this, but there's just so much you can do to protect the head from a blast. But it's good they're recognising this. I hope we can find better ways to treat those who have suffered this before they, too, are lost to the war.