The Punxsutawney Spirit

New study finds no brain injuries among ‘Havana syndrome’ patients

- By Lauran Neergaard

WASHINGTON (AP) — An array of advanced tests found no brain injuries or degenerati­on among U.S. diplomats and other government employees who suffer mysterious health problems once dubbed “Havana syndrome, ” researcher­s reported Monday.

The National Institutes of Health’s nearly fiveyear study offers no explanatio­n for symptoms including headaches, balance problems and difficulti­es with thinking and sleep that were first reported in Cuba in 2016 and later by hundreds of American personnel in multiple countries.

But it did contradict some earlier findings that raised the specter of brain injuries in people experienci­ng what the State Department now calls “anomalous health incidents.”

“These individual­s have real symptoms and are going through a very tough time,” said Dr. Leighton Chan, NIH’s chief of rehabilita­tion medicine, who helped lead the research. “They can be quite profound, disabling and difficult to treat.”

Yet sophistica­ted MRI scans detected no significan­t difference­s in brain volume, structure or white matter — signs of injury or degenerati­on — when Havana syndrome patients were compared to healthy government workers with similar jobs, including some in the same embassy. Nor were there significan­t difference­s in cognitive and other tests, according to findings published in the Journal of the American Medical Associatio­n.

While that couldn’t rule out some transient injury when symptoms began, researcher­s said it’s good news that they couldn’t spot long-term markers on brain scans that are typical after trauma or stroke.

That “should be some reassuranc­e for patients,” said study co-author Louis French, a neuropsych­ologist at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center who treats Havana syndrome. “It allows us to focus on the here and now, to getting people back to where they should be.”

A subset, about 28%, of Havana syndrome cases were diagnosed with a balance problem called persistent posturalpe­rceptual dizziness, or PPPD. Linked to innerear problems as well as severe stress, it results when certain brain networks show no injury but don’t communicat­e properly. French called it a “maladaptiv­e response,” much like how people who’ve slouched to alleviate back pain can have posture trouble even after the pain is gone.

The Havana syndrome participan­ts reported more fatigue, posttrauma­tic stress symptoms and depression.

The findings are the latest in an effort to unravel a mystery that began when personnel at the U.S. embassy in Cuba began seeking medical care for hearing loss and ear-ringing after reporting sudden weird noises.

Early on, there was concern that Russia or another country may have used some form of directed energy to attack Americans. But last year, U.S. intelligen­ce agencies said there was no sign a foreign adversary was involved and that most cases appeared to have different causes, from undiagnose­d illnesses to environmen­tal factors.

The NIH study, which began in 2018 and included more than 80 Havana syndrome patients, wasn’t designed to examine the likelihood of some weapon or other trigger for Havana syndrome symptoms. Chan said the findings don’t contradict the intelligen­ce agencies’ conclusion­s.

If some “external phenomenon” was behind the symptoms, “it did not result in persistent or detectable pathophysi­ologic change,” he said.

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