Category Archives: Government/Research

Domino Effect: How a Concussion Can Buckle a Body

A mild traumatic brain injury doesn’t just rattle the head; it may set the stage for a torn ligament or a stress fracture. In June 2026, the JAMA Network published the findings of a study that found U.S. servicemembers who suffered a mTBI, such as a concussion. The researchers tracked 26,784 troops who enlisted between 2016 and 2020. Musculoskeletal injuries are the leading cause of lost duty days in the military, and it was found that those who had a mTBI were 2.24 times more likely to later suffer this secondary injury.

Infographic titled “BI-DIRECTIONAL RELATIONSHIP: MUSCULOSKELETAL INJURY AND mTBI,” showing four steps: 1. ACUTE CAUSE—Falls, collisions, and physical impact can lead to both MSK injury and head impact (mTBI). 2. RISK FACTOR FOR RECOVERY—Pain, restricted mobility, and changes in physical activity hinder cognitive rest and rehabilitation. 3. INCREASED MSK RISK—mTBI symptoms increase vulnerability to falls and subsequent MSK injuries. 4. ALTERED MECHANICS—Neurological deficits and slow reaction times lead to improper movement patterns and higher re-injury rates.
This infographic explains how musculoskeletal injuries and mild traumatic brain injuries can reinforce one another through a cycle of pain, impaired recovery, and increased reinjury risk.

“There appears to be a bi-directional relationship between musculoskeletal injury and mild traumatic brain injury,” said Amy Silder, PhD, a biomedical engineer at the Naval Health Research Center. Referred to as post-concussion syndrome, PCS can include a disruption of balance, coordination, and reaction time long after the headaches fade. As is, it costs the military billions of dollars a year and leaves tens of thousands of troops unable to deploy.

The study’s authors urge clinicians to screen troops’ bodies after any brain injury. Screening concussion patients for lingering physical deficits, the researchers say, could keep more service members healthy and ready. (Though this recent study focused on the military, the clinical suggestions seem that they would be true for all those who have suffered a mTBI.)

Coast Guard Forced to Confront Brain Injuries

Coast Guard boat at sea

Coast Guard “surfmen” continuously absorb thousands of violent wave impacts while piloting rescue boats through rough surf. As the director of the University of Miami’s concussion program told the local NBC affiliate, “These are… significant waves, and sometimes it’s like hitting a concrete wall.” On July 31, 2026, US Coast Guard finally acknowledged the danger, through Admiral Kevin Lunday’s statement: “We owe it to [the crew] to protect [their] long-term health from the damage caused by relentless wave pound, blast overpressure and other concussive events that may cause injury.”

This reckoning was prompted by a citizen-investigation by 18-year-old Kayleigh Bonner, whose surfman father died by suicide in 2025. Soon after, this information was picked up by the New York Times, who reported that the service “has never studied the hazard that waves may pose to the brain.”

Repeated impacts can cause cumulative brain trauma, CTE-like degeneration, as the brain moves back-and-forth inside the skull. It has been determined that fast-boat operators have a roughly 45 percent chance of traumatic brain injury, but recreational boaters, powerboat racers, and commercial mariners are at risk too.

The US Coast Guard now pledges decisive action to better prevent, detect, and treat those effected by the impact of consistent wave pounding, and other such neurologically damaging events. On an individual scale, precautions include shock-mitigating suspension seats, gravitational force (G-force) sensors, speed limits, medical baselines, and prompt symptom reporting.

An Investigation into the Navy’s Response

On September 8, 2026, House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer and Subcommittee on Military and Foreign Affairs Chairman William Timmons released “Unseen Impacts.” This report capped an investigation that began last year into the Navy’s Project Odin’s Eye, which purportedly delved into potential brain injury in naval aviators who routinely endure up to nine Gs, from catapult launches and high-G turns. Navy medical officials then reasoned, in Catch-22 fashion, that with no evidence a problem existed, no study was needed. Therefore, none was done.

This secret TOPGUN program wasn’t disclosed to Navy leadership until the New York Times exposed it in 2024. Now, after examining Project Odin’s Eye, investigators have concluded that the program’s “research” wasn’t TRUE research.  Based on this new information, the Committee and Subcommittee are now urging Congress to mandate a comprehensive long-term aviator brain health study.

For more information on Project Odin’s Eye: https://tbionthehill.com/2025/09/17/navys-secret-brain-injury-study/

Parents File Lawsuit After NJ Child’s Tragedy in a “Safe Sport”, Previously Studied for TBI Benefits 

Badminton is one of the safest recreational sports, but as with all sports, it isn’t risk-free. The 2024 death of six-year-old Lucy Morgan of Stockholm, New Jersey, shows how a freak accident can turn devastating, even for spectators. On June 1, 2024, Lucy was sitting on the sideline when the aluminum shaft of a badminton racquet dislodged from its wooden handle and struck her in the head, piercing her skull. Surgeons operated to reduce brain swelling, but she died from her injuries on June 5, 2024. In August 2026, her parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the sports center, alleging the racket was defective.

Wheelchair badminton player and standing opponent reaching for shuttlecock

The federal government has long been aware that, as with all sports, badminton can cause injury. In 1990, the National Library of Medicine published a report that found for those who suffered a badminton injury, 1.8 percent had a head injury. Decades later, the government examined the benefits of badminton: in 2022, an NLM-published review of 27 studies that related to “’badminton AND health’ and ‘badminton AND benefits’” The analysis was that “compared with other types of physical sporting activities, badminton offers, for the most part, better outcomes pertaining to the three types of health (physical, mental and social), with benefits also seen for disabled individuals and even in visual health.”

Guidance is consistent about when and to what level a brain-injured individual should begin playing sports again, including badminton, advising that you should only start a sport or exercise once you’ve had medical clearance by a doctor. After that, the recommendation is that you progress slowly, while you enjoy its benefits.

Cook Brainfood With the Right Pan

Fried egg with colorful sautéed vegetables in a skillet

Every time you fry an egg or sauté a vegetable, the nonstick pan’s coating exposes you to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs). In fact, these “forever chemicals” reportedly are detectable in more than 99% of people. Research increasingly ties this seemingly inescapable PFA injection increasingly ties them to neurological risk.

A 2026 University of Miami study in Environmental Research report on the findings of this study drew wide attention last month, July 2026: Higher blood levels of the PFAS compound PFHxS were associated with roughly 53% greater odds of multiple sclerosis, climbing to about 56% in women, with the most-exposed participants more than 3.5 times as likely to have MS. MS is a widely known possible consequence of brain injury. [Scientists caution, though, that this evidence is associational, not proof of cause.]  Animal studies have provided further evidence that PFAS can build up in the brain tissue and disrupt learning and memory.

Irrespective of these concerns, nonstick pans remain valuable, as they make it easier to cook low-oil foods like eggs, salmon, walnuts, and leafy greens that nourish the brain. So, to protect yourself, recommendations include: (1) avoid overheating pans, (2) never preheat pens empty, (3) ventilate your kitchen, (4) use wood or silicone utensils, and (5) replace scratched or pre-2015 pans.

NYT Reports “At Least 1 in 4 N.F.L. Players Gets Brain Disease”

A New York Times article published yesterday, August 25, 2026, focuses on a study published this week in BMJ: at least one in four former N.F.L. players who died between 2016 and 2021 had chronic traumatic encephalopathy. While The Times’ headline, Study’s Alarming Finding: At Least 1 in 4 N.F.L. Players Gets Brain Disease, captures the reader, it and the study itself omit an even grimmer finding: it appears that only about approximately a quarter of the 878 players who died had their brains examined. The real risk for CTE could be almost one hundred percent.

Worn navy football helmet with number 24 on a wooden bench

CTE comes from the cumulative force of repeated head impacts. (No tackle football position is safe, but low-contact positions like punters and kickers are the safest, while linemen absorb thousands of blows.) Roughly 60% of the players found with CTE had dementia and severe impairment, including an inability to feed or groom themselves.

This isn’t a call to ban tackle football. But public universities, however lucrative their football programs may be, are taxpayer-supported government institutions. Perhaps lawmakers should at least weigh the benefits and drawbacks of the sport on college campuses before federal funds are provided.

“Storm” That Some Endure After TBI

Translucent flames rising from a forest stream among moss and leaves

Excessive sweating is one of the most visible aftereffects of a severe traumatic brain injury. The problem, unfortunately, is far from rare. For decades, studies indexed by the National Library of Medicine have been examining this condition, with estimates showing that this condition strikes roughly 8 to 33 percent of severe TBI patients. In acute stroke, one study found that sweating primarily occurs on the paralyzed side of the body in 55 percent of patients.*

Clinically recognized as paroxysmal sympathetic hyperactivity (PSH), the condition causes sudden, severe surges in the body’s fight-or-flight nervous system. Damage to the hypothalamus, the body’s thermostat, deepens the disruption. The “storm” occurs when the injured brain disconnects the brain’s inhibitory centers from its excitatory ones. Patients then erupt in surges of racing heart, spiking blood pressure, fever and drenching sweat.

Treatment leans heavily on medication. A 2026 trial at Zagazig University, a public university in Egypt, that is published in BMC Anesthesiology and found in the NLM-database, concluded that “prophylactic propranolol significantly reduces PSH incidence.” Physicians also prescribe medications that are typically used to treat different ailments: clonidine, gabapentin, morphine, baclofen, and botulinum toxin injections.

* Can the reverse happen? Yes. The same hypothalamic damage can leave survivors feeling persistently cold, or even dangerously hypothermic.

When Calcium Turns Against the Brain

Calcium usually conjures images of strong bones and glasses of milk. Those with a brain injury are often told by their doctors to increase their calcium intake, as low blood calcium often occurs in brain-injury patients. Inside your brain, though, calcium plays a very different role that scientists are learning can turn dangerous after an injury.

Diagram showing calcium ions entering a neuron through a voltage-gated calcium channel

Brain cells communicate through tiny gates called calcium channels, which let calcium atoms flow in and out. “Calcium channels are the major determinant of calcium influx,” explains Troy Littleton, a neuroscience professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Following a stroke or head injury, these gates can jam open, flooding cells with calcium and igniting inflammation and cell death.

Recent discoveries, many of which are available to view on the NLM database, spotlight new culprits. In 2026, scientists found that a channel called Orai1 flips the brain’s immune cells into “attack mode”; blocking it in mice calmed inflammation. Another channel, Piezo1, physically senses damage.

Importantly, these new findings confirm that the danger isn’t calcium itself, but the broken channels letting too much rush in.

Serious Gap in Veteran TBI Care Found

On August 5, 2026, the VA Office of Inspector General (VA OIG) released a national review that found a serious gap in traumatic brain injury care for post-9/11 veterans: Of 301,177 veterans who agreed to a comprehensive TBI evaluation after screening positive between September 11, 2001 and March 31, 2025, only 158,907 received one, leaving 142,270 without the assessment.

Though the evaluation largely draws on the same screening data of VA’s congressionally mandated TBI Veterans Health Registry, this oversight review is distinct in auditing the screening-to-evaluation pipeline rather than cataloging diagnosed cases. While very much not excusing the lapse, it was found to have several causes. In a 100-record sample, 65% of veterans canceled the appointment or did not respond to VA’s attempts to schedule it. But investigators also faulted the VA itself, as in 15% of cases the staff never placed the required consult, and a single-use electronic template blocked repeat evaluations for redeployed veterans. One VA official told investigators that once completed, the template effectively “locks down.”

The VA Inspector General Cheryl L. Mason issued three recommendations: (1) review the referral process after positive screenings, (2) consider a uniform system for directing veterans to Polytrauma System of Care specialists, (3) revise the template’s one-time-use limitation. The VA has agreed with the first two and agreed with the third, in principle.

When Sleep Turns Dangerous

Raina Heverin, 44, was left with a brain injury after plunging 40 feet from a balcony while sleepwalking on holiday in Paris. She suffered a bleed on the brain, a punctured lung, and a broken hip, arm and ribs, and spent three weeks in a coma.

Woman sleepwalking in bedroom at night while man sleeps on bed

This August 2026 Parisian case, and multiple reports filed on the National Library of Medicine since at least 2012, underscores how devastating sleepwalking can be. Sometimes called Elpenor syndrome, such falls are the primary way sleepwalking causes brain injury. Impaired perception during sleepwalking episodes can, for example, lead to falls from staircases and balconies. A meta-analysis of 51 studies found the estimated lifetime prevalence of sleepwalking was 6.9%, with current adult prevalence around 1.5%. (Though this meta-analysis was published, and made available on the NLM database, in November 2016, the findings remain notable.)

Traumatic brain injury can also precipitate devastating sleep disorders. Sleep disturbances overall affect 30% – 70% of persons after traumatic brain injury, in the forms of insomnia, fatigue, narcolepsy (with or without cataplexy, the sudden, brief loss of voluntary muscle control or tone), sleep apnea (obstructive and/or central), periodic limb movement disorder, and parasomnias. [In rehabilitation centers, parasomnias were the presenting complaint in 25% of patients with brain trauma.]

For prevention, doctors recommend brain injured patients create a safe sleep environment: remove sharp objects, lock doors and windows, install safety gates on staircases, and use door alarms. Maintaining a consistent sleep schedule that includes an hour before bed to mentally decompress is also important. Those with brain injury may want to consult with a sleep specialist, since these parasomnias frequently go underrecognized.