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Brain Scans Show Physical Evidence of Gulf War Syndrome
May 25, 2000 -- After more than five years of searching, researchers say they finally have physical evidence of Gulf War syndrome. Brain biochemical measurements in a well-studied group of ailing Gulf War veterans show brain-cell damage similar to that seen in the early stages of Parkinson's disease.
The researchers, from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, speculate that the syndrome may be linked to exposure to pesticides, chemical nerve gas, and anti-nerve gas medications during the war. But government officials say the findings, while intriguing, do nothing to establish a causal link between service in the Gulf during the war and the host of ailments known as Gulf War syndrome. And all sides agree that the test measuring the brain changes in the sick veterans does not lend itself to routine clinical use.
"We definitely want to do more studies in larger groups, but we have identified significant brain-cell loss in this patient population," lead researcher Robert Haley, MD, tells WebMD. Haley and his colleagues have studied illnesses in Gulf War veterans for the past six years. They published their most recent findings in the June issue of Radiology.
"We know that these are neurologically damaged people, but the question that is still not answered is, what is the cause of that damage?" Michael E. Kilpatrick, MD, of the Department of Defense, tells WebMD. "We are in agreement that these people are sick, but so far we haven't seen anything unique to Gulf War veterans that we are not seeing in people who didn't deploy." Kilpatrick is deputy director for the DOD's Office for Gulf War Illnesses.
Haley and his colleagues began their study of Gulf War illnesses in 1994 with a $1.5 million grant from Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot. Initial studies involving a 250-member Naval Reserve construction battalion from the Southeastern U.S. led the researchers to identify three distinct Gulf War syndromes. Haley says syndrome 1 is characterized by depression and mild impairment in thinking; syndrome 2 by confusion and more severe problems with reasoning and thinking problems; and syndrome 3 by severe, localized pain that cannot be linked to joint or muscle origins.
"Syndrome 2 is the bad one, and it is the one that most of these guys suffer from," Haley says. "About half of those we've seen with syndrome 2 are unable to work."
For the newly published study, the researchers focused on 40 veterans from the original study group of 250. They used magnetic resonance (MR) spectroscopy, a scan that measures chemical levels inside the brain, to compare 22 sick veterans to 18 healthy ones from the same battalion.
They found that veterans with syndrome 2 had 18% less N-acetylaspartate (NAA) in the brain's right basal ganglia and 26% less NAA in the brain stem, when compared to healthy veterans. Lowered NAA levels have been found to be a marker of dead or dying brain cells.
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