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Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

nytimes.com

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Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#371

Post by 2-3-7-43-1807 »

kragen wrote: post #342
2-3-7-43-1807 wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> diving deep underwater, which is also known to cause brain damage never heard about that. can you back this up with a source or explanation?

10.1096/fj.201701031R

"Collectively, these observations suggest that increased cerebral oxidative stress following prolonged apnea in trained divers may reflect a functional physiologic response, rather than a purely maladaptive phenomenon."

so, this paper neither is relevant for seal training nor does it claim any harm caused by breath holding, based on the Abstract section.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#372

Post by red-iron-pine »

garbagewoman wrote: post #291
nabla9 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.50 cal sniper rifles and shoulder launched weapons like Carl Gustaf, the M72 LAW or the AT4 can. Firing a rifle may or may not cause shock waves that are strong enough. If you have been firing a whole day you definitely feel funny in the head.

that feeling might be partly due to the large amounts of lead compounds in primers being inhaled by the shooter

plenty of troops shooting a lot outdoors. enlisted grunts shooting a machine guns, etc. lots of civilian shooters as well.

lead is also easy to detect in blood, or via things like hair samples. no doubt SF types are getting more residue than most, but again fairly easy to notice

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#373

Post by brinefine »

adrianN wrote: post #290
jillesvangurp wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the medication for psychological issues is aimed at altering the bio chemistry in the brain to mitigate physical problems. The reason that stuff works is because the issues are physical and not imagined. It's also true that certain disorders (e.g. psychosis) actually cause brain damage when left unchecked. This technically is not a single thing but more like a group of disorders with widely varying symptoms.…

The distinction between physical and psychological problems just betrays our abysmal understanding of how the brain works.

Maybe, but some kind of property dualism still seems plausible to me.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#374

Post by alexey-salmin »

sobriquet9 wrote: post #313
HPsquared wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it would break the neck. Typical AK47 bullet at 100yd has momentum 5 kgm/s, which is about the same as a baseball at 77mph.

Guns are kinetic energy weapons, not momentum weapons. It’s the kinetic energy that matters. Momentum is conserved, recoil momentum is the same as bullet momentum, yet recoil does not kill the shooter.

Yes, but dissipating kinetic energy is a solvable problem unlike dissipating momentum.

The initial statement that's being refuted here is that a bulletproof helmet would break your neck and thus cannot work.

This statement is false because (besides such helmets existing on practice) your skull can absorb the momentum without too much damage and helmet can absorb the kinetic energy.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#375

Post by kragen »

echoangle wrote: post #364
kragen wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't mean nitrox, and i agree that scuba diving doesn't cause brain damage at all (except, as you point out, in accidents) possibly people are upvoting because they know some facts you don't

But what diving except scuba is relevant when talking about seals? Are they doing apnea diving?

that was my inference, but i don't have much information about seal training, so i could be wrong. it's a little irrelevant though because, as i said originally, the description of the type of brain damage should rule out diving as a cause

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#376

Post by guerrilla »

enugu wrote: post #256
CapstanRoller wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way to think about it is via the concept of body autonomy/sovereignty: your life is in your hands. IMHO dignified peaceful suicide should be a right granted to all free individuals. If one is free to live, why is one not free to die? But that is too radical of an idea, and upsets all sorts of people (especially the money men) Sometimes opting out is the only rational choice. If there is no support in society for…

Suicides do not just happen due to being in extreme, incurable pain. People commit suicides due to emotions which seem powerful immediately(failure in love life, academics, career etc.) but would not seem as such a big deal if they were to look back on it afterwards either due to the passing of time or due to finding something else which made life worthwhile. This also is the problem with the autonomy argument - this…

No, this is wrong in both ways. Painful emotions are painful and not necessarily transiet and transiency is irrelevant to autonomy anyway. In fact, any argument that doesn't underminde the assumption of the right to bodily autonomy is trumped by autonomy.

People with temporary problems have a right to bodily autonomy and so do irrational people. Everyone does and doesn't need to justify themselves to anyone. The only exception is if they're hurting somone else.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#377

Post by harimau777 »

kragen wrote: post #217

> Much of what is categorized as post-traumatic stress disorder may actually be caused by repeated exposure to blasts. that is to say, it's actually shell shock? as in, actual physical shock from actual shells? george carlin would be so proud https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc the article also mentions that they'd all trained extensively in diving deep underwater, which is also known to cause brain damage, b…

FWIW The standard rifles used by the US Military (M16 and it's variants/decedents) are fairly low power, low recoil, and quiet as rifles go. Of course I'm not doctor so maybe they are still enough to cause damage and like another poster pointed out, there are other weapons that soldiers use which are much more powerful.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#378

Post by justin66 »

seventytwo wrote: post #159
justin66 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shooting as a popular passtime has been around long enough that we know what the risks are: commonly tinnitus, rarely injuries related to what the firearm actually does, more rarely lead poisoning. On the other hand, artillery and rockets are extremely loud. If you want to look it up and start comparing things, keep in mind that every 3 decibels represents a doubling in pressure, so a howitzer having twenty or thirty…

I think this is probably correct. There are people who shoot thousands of rounds per year and there hasn’t been any mind of established pattern of brain damage like this (at least to my knowledge). It’s possible small arms fire doesn’t make big enough shockwaves. To cause the effects. I’d hypothesize it’s the larger blasts… perhaps even a frequency component to it? Blasts from a fast explosive like C4 could do more d…

> Interesting subject.

To someone familiar with the subject matter, “shooting guns gives you brain damage” is an absurd, incorrect idea that one feels obligated to voice an objection to, in order to perhaps slow the spread of misinformation.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#379

Post by sobriquet9 »

zorked wrote: post #358
sobriquet9 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really a concern outdoors. Ben Stoeger, world shooting champion and firearms trainer who shoots a lot, said his blood lead levels are normal and attributes it to shooting outdoors.

n=1

One counterexample may be sufficient to disprove a hypothesis. If you claim a certain quadratic equation has no roots and I give you one root, you can’t say “n=1”.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#380

Post by harimau777 »

nabla9 wrote: post #279
kragen wrote: post #217

> Much of what is categorized as post-traumatic stress disorder may actually be caused by repeated exposure to blasts. that is to say, it's actually shell shock? as in, actual physical shock from actual shells? george carlin would be so proud https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc the article also mentions that they'd all trained extensively in diving deep underwater, which is also known to cause brain damage, b…

.50 cal sniper rifles and shoulder launched weapons like Carl Gustaf, the M72 LAW or the AT4 can. Firing a rifle may or may not cause shock waves that are strong enough. If you have been firing a whole day you definitely feel funny in the head.

How much do special forces use weapons significantly more specialized than the standard issue M4? CoD suggests that every operator is slinging a sniper rifle and some highly customized exotic small batch assault rifle; however, I'm guessing that's likely just to make the games more exciting.
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