Science has printed an article about research done by Dr. Ibolja Cernak and others, demonstrating that cognitive and emotional deficits of brain damage are much more common than previously thought among soldiers. Due to the advances made in body armor, combat injuries involve fewer bullet wounds and more blast injuries. Bombs do their damage by creating a blast wave, a fast-moving wall of compressed air. Obviously this can cause injury by throwing soldiers and vehicles around, but it can also cause injury to delicate pressure- and shear-sensitive tissues like those in the lungs, the bowels and the brain.
Dr. Cernak's excellent finding - excellent from a medical point of view, mind you, not from the point of view of soldiers - is that blast waves too weak to damage the lungs or the bowel can still cause serious, if subtle, brain damage.
