MRI finds brain ‘differences’ in US Cuban embassy staff
The mystery of what happened to US Embassy employees who reported feeling ill while serving in Cuba has been deepened by new advanced MRI scans, which differ from those of controls, according to University of Pennsylvania researchers.
The advanced structural and functional MRI scans show the workers have less white matter and different neural connection patterns than a comparison group of people who did not work in Cuba, researchers report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Mean whole brain white matter volume was significantly smaller in 40 embassy personnel compared with 48 demographically similar healthy controls (542cm3 vs 570cm3), the authors report.
“Among patients compared with controls, there were significantly greater ventral diencephalon and cerebellar grey matter volumes, and significantly smaller frontal, occipital, and parietal lobe white matter volumes,” they said.
