from:MIT

Scientists have discovered a mechanism underlying the type of brain injury that soldiers often suffer as a result of roadside explosions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The work could point the way toward early treatment for these acute blast injuries by identifying potential drug targets.

Two new papers from the Disease Biophysics Group at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, led by Kevin “Kit” Parker, use tissue-engineering techniques to model the physical and biochemical effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the brain and blood vessels. Parker says the work represents a first step toward a “TBI on a chip” that could be used to screen for drugs to treat blast-injured soldiers before long-term damage sets in.

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