Military combat marks the brain
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/343740/title/Military_combat_marks_the_brain
A single four-month deployment to Afghanistan is associated with brain changes and diminished attention, Dutch scientists report. Most changes went away a year and a half after returning from combat, suggesting that the brain can largely heal itself and that longer breaks between combat tours might be a good idea.
The study, which focused on healthy Dutch soldiers, reveals how the brain responds to stress outside of a laboratory, says clinical neuroscientist Rajita Sinha of the Yale University School of Medicine. Its a nice way to start looking at natural high levels of stress we experience as humans, she says.
Although the soldiers came back mentally and physically healthy, in Afghanistan they had fought, come under enemy fire and seen their fellow soldiers and civilians wounded or dead.
Researchers led by Guido van Wingen of the University of Amsterdam conducted brain scans while the soldiers performed a lab test that required them to hold several numbers in their memory simultaneously. Initially, the researchers found no brain differences between 33 soldiers who were about to be deployed for the first time and 26 who were still in training. Nor were there differences in a lab task that required intense concentration for several minutes. But the story changed after some soldiers experienced combat, the team reports online September 4 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.