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| Science |
| Physicists shed light on mysterious battlefield injury |
| 2009-09-04 |
| A common battlefield brain injury could originate in the blast waves of nearby explosions, even though such waves cause relatively small accelerations of a soldier's body. That is the conclusion of physicists in the US who have used computer simulations to study the causes of traumatic brain injury (TBI), a poorly understood condition that appears to be on the increase. According to the simulations, the blast waves of grenades, landmines and other devices can bypass a soldier's helmet, distort the skull and inflict potentially dangerous loads on the brain. These loads may be sufficient to cause TBI, even when there has been no contact with shrapnel from the explosion. "This is a potential new mechanism," explains William Moss, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California and an author of the study. "There are so many candidate possibilities [for TBI] that have been put out by the Department of Defense and others – they're frantically searching for an answer to this problem." TBI has many symptoms and can lead to disabilities or even death. It has become more prevalent as modern armour has cut the number of outright kills from explosives, but no one is sure of the cause. Physicians know that it is linked to explosions, but just which of the many effects of explosions – the impact of shrapnel, the inhalation of toxic gas, or the blast itself, perhaps – has been a mystery. |
| Posted by:Bright Pebbles |
| #1 "[Body] Shields up, Mr. Sulu!" > KIRK, ala canceled Army FCS??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-09-04 19:32 |