Brains wanted: Sign up to donate yours today!

BETHESDA, MD, UNITED STATES

01.20.2015

Story by Maj. Eve Baker 

Marine Corps Base Quantico

BETHESDA, Md. - Brain tissue needed by researchers to study effects of combat trauma on service members.

Though it may sound like a plot line from the latest military-on-zombie action flick, the Department of Defense is in fact seeking brains to study the effects of traumatic brain injuries incurred in combat on service members. Dr. Daniel Perl, a neuropathologist (and not a zombie), is the lead investigator in the ongoing study at the Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine, based at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.

Brain injuries, from mild concussions to penetrating trauma, are widely acknowledged to be the most common injury suffered in the last 13 years of war. According to a statement from the CNRM, “Approximately 15 percent to 20 percent of service members returning from Operation Iraqi Freedom reported having had at least one TBI during their tours of duty, and data suggest that a higher percentage of service members deployed for Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan have suffered TBIs … This kind of brain injury affects the mood and memory of more than 260,000 servicemen and women, often disrupting their ability to maintain a job, reenter the community, even reconnect with family.”

However, according to a CNRM spokesman, not much is known about how the brain is damaged following a TBI. Perl said the Center’s brain repository is the only such collection in the country that is dedicated to this line of research. Perl and his colleagues are attempting to determine the effects that exposure to blasts from high explosives and improvised explosive devices have on the brain. According to Perl, comprehensive, small-scale data on the effects of being in close proximity to an explosion can only be obtained by looking at specimens under a microscope. While brain scans are valuable in some ways, he said, “What you see on a brain scan doesn’t really tell you what’s happening on a cellular level.”

Perl referenced the recent high-profile suicides of a number of current and former National Football League players. Given the full-contact nature of professional football, many players have suffered repeated concussions, ranging from mild to severe. As a result, according to a recent New York Times article, this can result in “chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease linked to depression, dementia and occasionally suicide among more than a dozen deceased players.” In 2011, former Chicago bears player Dave Duerson committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest after texting family members that he wanted his brain donated for scientific research.

Perl emphasized that the trauma suffered in combat is a different type of injury than that suffered by football players, and the brains of service members need to be studied specifically. Perl said that service members can easily sign up to donate their organs after their death through a notation on their application for a driver’s license and military identification card, but they also need to make their wishes clearly known to family members to prevent delay. Service members can also donate their brains to the CNRM directly in their wills. The center additionally needs non-injured brains for a comparison, and Perl said family members and interested others can donate their brains as well.

For family members concerned about their loved ones’ personal information and medical history being made public, the CNRM website includes the following statement: “At the time the brain is received, it is assigned a unique identifying number. Only designated, qualified staff has permission to access medical and service records and the autopsy diagnostic report. When researchers obtain brain tissue, only the unique code number identifies it. Family names or other specific identifying information are not included.”

There is no cost to the family of the deceased to donate, and the donation process will not delay the funeral or disfigure the body of the deceased. Perl said the researchers treat the brain tissues samples with the utmost respect and view them as “a gift to mankind and to other service members.”

Those who are interested in learning more about the process of brain tissue donation can visit the CNRM brain tissue repository website at www.researchbraininjury.org.

• Date Taken: 01.20.2015
• Date Posted: 01.20.2015 11:18
• Story ID: 152273
• Location: BETHESDA, MD, US