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SAN FRANCISCO VA WORKS TO ALLEVIATE AND PREVENT

BRAIN TRAUMA IN VETERANS -- "We think outside the

box here. We're doing trials now, we are jumping

on this now, we don't want to wait."

 

 

For more information on traumatic brain injury, use the VA Watchdog search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/ses
search.php?q=traumatic+brain&op=ph

Story here... http://www.sfgate.
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a/2007/09/24/MNL4SCQGV.DTL

Story below:

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S.F. center works to alleviate, prevent brain trauma in veterans

Elizabeth Fernandez
Chronicle Staff Writer

Ever since he was injured in Iraq when his humvee rolled over, Steven Chang has suffered from excruciating headaches. Earlier this month, he underwent a rigorous brain scan at the San Francisco VA Medical Center, part of a new study focusing on vets with brain injuries.

"The scan was 21/2 hours nonstop - it was quite an ordeal," said Chang, 26.

By performing the scan, doctors at the Northern California Institute for Research and Education, the largest research institution in the Veterans Affairs system, hope to learn new ways to improve the health of Chang and other returning vets.

Little known to the general public, the San Francisco nonprofit is conducting innovative medical research designed to treat brain injuries and other neurological conditions, signature marks of the Iraq war.

"People haven't noticed us because we are focused on veterans," said Lynn Pulliam, associate chief of staff for research. Like the more than 200 other researchers at the center, she is a member of the UCSF faculty.

"So many young soldiers are coming home with brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorders," she said. "In previous wars, these conditions weren't high on the list of things that were studied. After Vietnam, we didn't even know what PTSD was. But we think outside the box here. We're doing (research) trials now, we are jumping on this now, we don't want to wait."

Along with traumatic brain injury research, the center's studies include spinal cord and battlefield injuries. One study is looking into intra-nasal delivery of medication to treat severe head trauma soon after it happens.

"What if we could put a small nodule that would go up your nose that would go to your brain so that you could decrease swelling on the battlefield?" said Pulliam.

Another study centers on concussions - repeated hits to a soldier's head. "You may not lose consciousness, but these hits are not OK," she said. "This research has implications for the public, too. We have the compounds; we have the route; we just have to make sure it isn't toxic, and that it helps."

One of the center's leading scientists is Dr. Michael Weiner, 66, a pioneering brain imaging researcher who wears a ponytail, plays jazz piano, collects Vietnamese art and swims every day in the bay at 6 a.m. no matter how frigid the water.

"I haven't been playing the piano much lately because work has been so exciting," he says.

With the help of a $4.6 million magnetic resonance imaging machine that he fondly calls "the 4T," Weiner is studying not only Iraq vets but also those from the Gulf War.

"Now we have a new war and, sadly, we are getting a lot of people with traumatic stress disorder," he said. "A lot of it is due to blast injuries."

A vet himself, Weiner is running 27 separate projects, all of them centering on MRI imaging. A professor at UCSF and director of the nonprofit's Center for Imaging of Neurodegenerative Diseases, he has worked with Veterans Affairs for 36 years. In May, the Department of Veterans Affairs gave him its highest scientific honor - the William S. Middleton Award.

"He wouldn't have won this award without being so cutting edge," said Dr. Joel Kupersmith, the VA's chief research and development officer. "Traumatic brain injuries are a very important condition in veterans coming back. We don't yet know how common they will be. Dr. Weiner's work will help benefit returning veterans of the Iraq war and patients with both Alzheimer's and PTSD."

Weiner has a succinct, audacious goal: He wants to cure Alzheimer's disease.

As such, he's the principal investigator behind the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, a large-scale research project funded by a $60 million grant and involving 57 different clinics in the United States and Canada.

"Alzheimer's is a rapidly growing disease with a huge cost," he said. "Half the population over 85 has Alzheimer's. Unfortunately, there is no treatment that truly slows the progression. It's a tough challenge. The brain is the most complex organ that we have. But it turns out that brain imaging is a very accurate way of monitoring disease progression and detecting the effectiveness of treatment. Once we find drugs that work on Alzheimer's, then we can work on prevention."

Kupersmith said that such research will benefit the general population, including veterans, because many of them have Alzheimer's.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has previously lent support to San Francisco's VA center, touted the importance of Weiner's work.

"There's a saying in the military that on the battlefield no soldier will be left behind," she told The Chronicle. "We have made a promise that when our troops come home, no veteran will be left behind. The innovative and groundbreaking research by Dr. Weiner and his team at UCSF helps keep that promise, especially as more of our soldiers return home from Iraq with lifelong injuries and disabilities."

For his part, Steven Chang is grateful for the medical attention he's getting.

Chang, who emigrated from Taiwan to San Francisco when he was a boy, joined the Army National Guard in 2002 and trained as a counterintelligence agent.

Deployed to Baghdad in 2004, he was working as a machine gunner in a convoy when his fast-moving vehicle pitched into a deep crevice. Among his injuries, Chang fractured his left cheek and jawbone and damaged his left eye.

He is back home now and working in shipping and receiving for a biotech company, but his headaches are frequent and severe.

"My memory is also not as good as it was before," he said. "There will be more of us coming back with these problems. If you have a huge explosion go off next to you, the shockwaves are really intense."

 

For more information, call (415)775-2020 or visit www.ncire.org.

E-mail Elizabeth Fernandez at efernandez@sfchronicle.com.

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Larry Scott  --