Military & VeteransDr. Anand Veeravagu explains how a blast causes a swift change in pressure that generates a wave of wind, sound, and/or debris that, in turn, can damage a person's brain through a microtrauma or microbleed.
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[Dr. Anand Veeravagu] In the setting of a blast injury, and when a service member is near a blast, the hypothesis is that there is a very quick change in the pressure because of the blast. That pressure generates a wave, and that wave can be wind, it can be sound, and it could be debris. But regardless, there is a change in the pressure surrounding the service member that's very quick and that results in a definitive impact to the service member that you may have seen service members being moved 100 feet from a blast injury, you may see service members simply fall down, but it depends on the extent of the blast. As a result of that pressure wave, as a result of that change in pressure, the brain undergoes a very specific trauma. That could be a micro bleed within the contents of the brain, a micro injury, which is sort of a bruising on the surface of the brain, but at this point in time, I don't think we really know the exact impact of a blast wave on the brain.
Posted on BrainLine September 4, 2013.
About the author: Anand Veeravagu, MD
Anand Veeravagu, MD is a neurosurgeon in training at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is a former White House fellow and special assistant to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. He previously served as chief neurosurgery resident at the Palo Alto Veterans Affairs Hospital.
Produced by Christian Lindstrom and Justin Rhodes, BrainLine Military.