Groundbreaking research looks at how blasts injure brain

Groundbreaking research looks at how blasts injure brain
By SETH ROBBINS
Stars and Stripes
Published: November 25, 2011

LANDSTUHL, Germany — During a firefight in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province in 2002, U.S. Army Maj. Kevin Kit Parker stood atop a hill awaiting a Medevac flight for an injured soldier when a bomb exploded several miles away.

He saw the bomb’s intense light first, then felt its shock waves ripple through his body.

“It felt like it was lifting my bowels, and I was quite far away,” Parker said.

Several years later, when he was working in bioengineering research at Harvard University, a friend of Parker’s suffered a severe traumatic brain injury, and Parker was reminded of his Kandahar experience. Parker chose to shift his focus from cardiac tissue to brain research after receiving encouragement from Col. Geoffrey Ling, a neurologist and program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.

Now a professor at Harvard, Parker has published groundbreaking research describing how blasts injure the brain. Gathering data directly on the battlefield from servicemembers who’ve been in close proximity to blasts, he said, will be key to understanding the devastating yet subtle damage caused.
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