Within the neurons, the research team was looking for deficits in the activity of microtubules, hollow cylinders that act as the cell's conveyor belt, which the investigators believe might go awry in Gulf
War Illness patients.
Study author Dr. Elaine Peskind, co-director of the Mental
Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center at VA Puget Sound, said TBI and PTSD are the invisible wounds of
war and that 75 percent of the mTBI
patients she treats also have PTSD.