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Published On June 10, 2016
CLINICAL RESEARCH
The Trauma of War
A photography exhibit profiles veterans who return home with life-altering wounds.
They return from war bearing scars. Photographer David Jay puts the disfigured bodies of veterans who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan at the center of The Unknown Soldier, a photography exhibition that debuted last year in Washington, D.C. But the emotional trauma of war remains largely hidden from view. Nearly 20% of soldiers who returned from Iraq and Afghanistan have reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression. This has led to an increase in clinical research on mental trauma—investigating therapies ranging from the use of MDMA (a psychoactive recreational drug) to nerve stimulation. In January 2016, Cohen Veterans Bioscience, a mental health care organization, partnered with McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., to launch the world’s first brain bank to focus exclusively on PTSD and traumatic brain injury. The research project aims to provide a greater understanding of trauma’s neurobiology and inform new diagnostic and treatment strategies.
Dispatches

What Makes a Kid Clumsy? More research into coordination disorders shows why some children are more prone to trip, fumble and spill the milk.

Eyes in the Sky Satellite data can be used to assess the health impact of dust storms and the spread of mosquito-borne diseases. Additional applications could be on the horizon.

Could This One Change Help Curb the Opioid Crisis? To prescribe an effective bridge to addiction treatment, emergency physicians must get special training and receive a waiver. Making that process easier—or eliminating the requirement altogether—could make a big impact.

One Thing Leads to the Next Robert Lefkowitz is best known for revealing the mechanism behind hundreds of drugs in use today. But he thinks of himself as a storyteller first and has a new book out to make his case.

Podcast: The Research Year That Was Medical research labs have faced a difficult stretch of closed buildings and competing priorities. Yet they have also produced milestone discoveries—and not only on COVID-19.

The Shape of Us Two milestone discoveries in protein modeling promise to change the fundamentals of drug discovery.

Universal Flu Vaccines Move Forward In the shadow of coronavirus vaccine development, another vaccine was making solid progress.

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