"Scientists Seek Veterans For Final Act Of Service" - Brit McCandless Farmer
Anxiety, irritability, memory loss, cognitive problems, profound depression - often to the point of suicide - these have been the unwelcome symptoms ushering the return home for thousands of veterans since 9/11. In that time, more than 300,000 service members have been given a diagnosis of traumatic brain injury, but scientists are now learning that some of those injuries are much more severe than they initially thought. Some veterans' brains are affected by chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, caused by repeated blows to the head. There's currently no cure for CTE, a debilitating brain disease that causes symptoms such as depression, memory loss, difficulty thinking, and impulse control. Researchers are trying to find ways to treat - and even just diagnose - CTE, and for that, they need veterans. While the only fool-proof way to diagnose CTE is by testing a post-mortem brain, Samuel Gandy, MD, PhD, professor of neurology and psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, is using scans that test for the disease in the living. In Dr. Gandy's trial, participants are injected with the tracer, and then put through a 20 minute PET scan. High resolution images of their brains are combined with MRI results to get a 360-degree picture, showing whether there are signs of CTE. In the past year, 36 veterans and athletes have been tested for the disease in Dr. Gandy's lab. He hopes his trial will lead to drug therapies that offer relief to future CTE patients - and maybe even to a cure.
- Samuel Gandy, MD, PhD, Professor, Neurology, Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
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