AUTOPSIES OF US SOLDIERS FROM AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ MAY HAVE REVEALED THE CAUSE OF THE TERM SHELLSHOCK AS IMPRINTS OF A HONEYCOMB PATTERN CAN BE SEEN ON THE PART OF THE INJURED BRAIN THAT PLAY THE ROLE IN THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM

When the war poet Wilfred Owen wrote of “men whose minds the Dead have ravished” he was attempting to describe the mysterious effects of shellshock which started appearing during the First World War and of which he himself was a sufferer.

Now, a century after the first cases began to appear, scientists believe they have for the first time identified the signature brain injury that could explain why some soldiers go on to have their lives blighted by the condition.

After conducting autopsies on US combat veterans who survived improvised explosive device (IED) blasts in Iraq and Afghanistan but later died of other causes, researchers in the US found the ex-soldiers had a unique type of brain injury.  

Described as a ‘distinctive honeycomb pattern of broken and swollen nerve fibres’, the injuries were not the same as those found in car crash and drug overdose victims, or sufferers of punch-drunk syndrome, which is caused by repeated blows to the head. 

The lesions occurred in critical regions of the IED survivors’ brains, including in the frontal lobes, which control decision making and reasoning, lead the scientists to conclude that hidden brain injuries may play a role in the social and psychological problems faced by some combat veterans.

 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/the-mystery-of-shellshock-solved-scientists-identify-the-unique-brain-injury-caused-by-war-9981443.html