White matter acts like information highways between brain cells. Doctors still don’t know how victims ended up with the white matter changes, nor how exactly those changes might relate to their symptoms. But acoustic waves have never been shown to alter the brain’s white matter tracts, said Elisa Konofagou, a biomedical engineering professor at Columbia University who is not involved in the government’s investigation. Physicians at the University of Miami and the University of Pennsylvania who have treated the Cuba victims are writing it, with input from the State Department’s medical unit and other government doctors. Studies have found both concussions and white matter damage in Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who survived explosions yet had no other physical damage.

Source: National Post December 06, 2017 11:03 UTC