Military personnel are less likely to develop chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a disabling condition found in former boxers and football players.
In the June 9 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, a team reports that less than 5% of dead service members' brains had evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
A study of brains from deceased college and National Football League players found signs of the brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
Service members who have had concussions from bomb blasts are not likely to develop chronic traumatic encephalopathy. The brains of 45 people were exposed to blasts.
The results show that serving in the military and being exposed to blast is probably not a significant risk factor for developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
The disease can only be diagnosed after a death. During an autopsy, a pathologist looks for areas of the brain that have high concentrations of a toxic substance.
The condition is associated with a number of mental health issues.
Military personnel who have been exposed to bomb blasts have similar symptoms to those seen in people with chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
Some doctors are concerned that the high rates of suicide and post traumatic stress disorder among veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan may be related to the brain disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
Their families said that they were having trouble sleeping.
The Brain Tissue Repository is operated by the Department of Defense and the Uniformed Services University.
Perl says that they wanted to look at the brains and see how much the brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy was involved in the problem.
Only three of the brains were from service members who had been exposed to bombs.
All ten of them had played contact sports.
Bomb blasts and sports impacts affect the brain in a number of ways.
The brain is pushed against the skull by an impact in football or boxing. A bomb blast causes brain tissue to stretch and change shape.
Perl claims that the physics are different. Pathology from it is different.
Impacts and blasts can cause long-term damage.
He says that one shouldn't think that the brains are normal because they weren't found with chronic traumatic encephalopathy. It's not the case.
Perl says that most of the brains came from young people. As they got older, it is possible that more of them would have developed the disease.
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