Victims of mysterious attack at US embassy in Cuba now have "brain abnormalities"

Twenty-four US government officials and their relatives were subject to a series of unknown, invisible attacks on the US embassy in Cuba starting last year. Doctors who examined the victims say the people have suffered brain injury as a result.

From The Guardian:

Medical testing has revealed the embassy workers developed changes to the white matter tracts that let different parts of the brain communicate, several US officials said, describing a growing consensus held by university and government physicians researching the attacks. White matter acts like information highways between brain cells.

Loud, mysterious sounds followed by hearing loss and ear-ringing had led investigators to suspect sonic attacks. But officials are now avoiding that term. The sounds may have been the byproduct of something else that caused damage, said three US officials briefed on the investigation.

The discovery casts doubt on the theory that the attacks were sonic waves. The Guardian spoke to Elisa Konofagou, a biomedical engineering professor at Columbia University, who told the paper that acoustic waves don't affect white matter tracts in the brain.

I would be very surprised, Konofagou said, adding that ultrasound in the brain is used frequently in modern medicine. We never see white matter tract problems.

Image: Stevenbedrick at English Wikipedia