Restricting movement of the head and neck may reduce head injuries to soldiers in an explosion, new research has found.
Researchers recreated the conditions of an improvised explosive device (IED) in a laboratory and measured the impacts of the explosion on the brain tissue of mice. Mice whose head was immobilised during the blast showed less tissue damage and memory loss than those whose head was not restrained.
These results indicate that restraining the head may better protect soldiers from head injuries and reduce the chance of them developing progressive neuro-degenerative diseases such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which is thought to induce depression, aggression and memory loss.
Read more at University of Oxford