The human brain has been studied for several centuries, but there is still a lot we don’t understand about it. And according to radiologist Pratik Mukherjee of the University of California, San Francisco, this includes how concussions affect the brain.
“There is a controversy with soldiers that were repeatedly exposed to blasts in the battlefield, about whether they may get dementia in earlier ages and it’s been actively investigated.”
Mukherjee says new technology, like higher quality images from MRI scanners, might be an answer that doctors, researchers and injured patients have long been looking for.
"The brain is harder than other organs, even other important organs like the heart and so while it’s been recognized that this is a big problem for centuries and even if you look at prior wars, where they talk about shell shock in WWI where they had a lot of artillery explosion for the first time. They are basically describing these repetitive blast injuries, their concussions, but they just didn’t have the tools to understand any of that at that time."
view more