April 28, 2008, Cambridge, MA -- Traumatic brain injury, or TBI, has been labeled the signature injury of the Iraq War. Estimates of the number of soldiers who have experienced concussions while deployed range as high as 20 percent. The long-term implications of TBI are unclear, and no treatments exist to cure long-lasting symptoms. The effects of successive concussions—common in redeployed troops—are also unknown.

The cover story of the May issue of MIT’s Technology Review magazine explores the symptoms of TBI in Iraq veterans through first-person interviews, and it examines new technology being developed to better explain the changes that occur in the brain from explosive shock waves.

Although the blasts created by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) manufactured by insurgent forces in Iraq are similar to explosives of past wars, today’s soldiers survive them at a much greater rate due to better armor and better and more rapid medical treatment.

The specific causes of TBI’s symptoms are not yet known, making treatment design difficult. Scientists are studying the chain of events that happen during an explosion—including the shock wave of compressed air, the electromagnetic pulse, and the electric and magnetic fields that can produce surges in current and voltage—to determine how they might affect the human brain. Previous research on brain injury has focused mostly on blunt trauma to the skull.

In “Brain Trauma in Iraq,” Technology Review’s Emily Singer looks at new methods to study the effects of TBI. Singer interviews Raul Radovitsky, an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, who, along with David F. Moore, a neurologist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, has developed a software model incorporating both the physics of pressure waves and the variable properties of the brain’s tissues.

Through animal experiments, Geoffrey Ling and his colleagues at DARPA are looking to understand the same things that occur during an IED attack in order to analyze each component, including the heat, light, and pressure wave associated with explosions.

“This is just the beginning of a look at a terribly important consequence of the war in Iraq,” said Technology Review editor in chief Jason Pontin. “The implications of understanding TBI are profound for the health of veterans, and the fact that many of the symptoms of TBI are similar to PTSD makes diagnosis and treatment a challenge. The study of effects on the brain is critical to understanding the long-term prognosis and key to developing treatments.”

Accompanying the cover story online is a documentary-style video that includes interviews with all three research scientists, as well as soldiers suffering from TBI. The article and video can be found at www.technologyreview.com/iraq.