'Significant differences' found in the brains of diplomats who experienced 'sonic attacks' in Cuba

Doctors have found "significant differences" in the brains of the diplomats who experienced mysterious purported "health attacks" in Cuba, NBC News reports.

According to the University of Pennsylvania study, workers examined had "less white matter in their brains and less connectivity in the areas that control vision and hearing than similar healthy people," per NBC.

It's been nearly two years since the State Department said that U.S. workers in Cuba had experienced "health attacks," with diplomats beginning to suffer from health issues, including hearing loss and headaches, after hearing strange noises. President Trump said he believed Cuba was to blame, although Cuba has denied responsibility. Even all this time later, NBC reports that the government "still has not determined who or what is responsible" for the alleged attacks and at this point has "exhausted its leads in the case."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Dr. Randel Swanson told CNN that if any of these patients were examined in a brain injury clinic without context, "you would think that they had a traumatic brain injury from being in a car accident or a blast in the military." Swanson in the study compared the effects to a "concussion without a concussion."

Still, even as this new medical information is released, doctors could not make a determination about whether the "significant differences" were caused by the apparent attacks or can help explain them. But even as the case remains elusive as ever, Dr. Ragini Verma, lead researcher, described the new findings in an interview with Reuters as "pretty jaw-dropping."