Abstract #1982

Advanced Mr Imaging of Active Duty Military Personnel Following Acute Blast-Related Tbi

Christine Louise MacDonald¹, Dana Cooper¹, John Witherow², Abraham Snyder³, Joshua Shimony³, Marcus Raichle³, Stephen Flaherty², Raymond Fang², David Brody¹

¹Neurology, Washington University, Saint Louis, MO, United States; ²Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Landstuhl, Germany; ³Radiological Sciences, Washington University, Saint Louis, MO, United States

Military personnel have a higher rate than civilians of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) even during times of peace. TBI has been called the signature injury of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan . Many of these injuries occur as the result of blast exposure, but little is known about the characteristics of blast-related TBI. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was employed for this study of 85 active duty military personnel (20 control, 65 TBI). Abnormalities were found on DTI that were not apparent on conventional imaging. This is the first time this has been observed in this particular population.