New York Times gift articles @sopuli.xyz silence7 @slrpnk.net 2 days ago

Pattern of Brain Damage Is Pervasive in Navy SEALs Who Died by Suicide

www.nytimes.com Pattern of Brain Damage Is Pervasive in Navy SEALs Who Died by Suicide

A military lab found distinctive damage from repeated blast exposure in every brain it tested, but Navy SEAL leaders were kept in the dark about the pattern.

5 comments

i was listening to a podcast a month or two ago that brought light to this problem - soldiers, who may never have seen combat but were within range of powerful blasts, can suffer enormous amounts of brain damage from it.

The episode was discussing the case of one particular soldier who worked in a support role and later went to teach a course that bombarded cadets and trainees with all sorts of simulated blasts. Just because he was there, it caused him huge amounts of brain damage only discovered after he'd killed himself.

CTE can't be reliably diagnosed right now as the only definitive test for it is to cut your brain into millimeter-thick slices and analyzing them. obviously, they can only perform this test upon the deceased.
- Even the relatively minor "trauma-rette" of hitting a soccer ball with your head is associated with permanent brain damage. Our brains were not made for being hit a bunch of times.
  
  If a soccer ball can do that then I imagine fighters have tons of brain damage.