By Daisy Yuhas
More than two million Americans have served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Of those that return, thousands carry invisible trauma that impact their daily lives. The effects of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) from explosive blasts are especially commonplace for these veterans, afflicting hundreds of thousands of service members.
New research explores how the number of explosions experienced by a veteran relates to lasting changes in the activity of specific brain cells in the cerebellum, an area traditionally associated with motor coordination. It is possible these changes contribute to some of the mood changes and cognitive complaints, such as memory loss, that service members report even years after exposure to combat.
In the new study a team based at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System and University 
of Washington—including
clinical psychiatrist Elaine Peskind and molecular biologist David Cook of U.W. and VA Puget Sound molecular neurophysiologist James Meabon—worked with 33 participants who had been exposed to explosive blasts.
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