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Research Highlights
Studies Confirm Poorer Cognitive Performance in Gulf-deployed Veterans
Taken from the Veterans Health Administration Highlights dated July 21, 2003
Veterans deployed to the Persian Gulf in 1990 and 1991 scored worse overall on neuropsychological tests than non-deployed veterans in a series of studies by researchers at the Boston Environmental Hazards Center, part of the Veterans Affairs (VA) Boston Healthcare system. The five studies appear in the June 2003 Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment.
In one study, Gulf-deployed veterans performed significantly worse than their non-deployed cohorts on tests of attention, visuospatial skills, visual memory, and mood. Among the deployed veterans, those who reported having taken pyridostigmine bromide—a pill given to some 250,000 Gulf War personnel as a preventive treatment against possible attack with the nerve gas soman—performed worse than those who had not taken the pill.
Past research on Gulf War veterans has shown they are at higher risk for a vague cluster of symptoms known as Gulf War illness, involving chronic fatigue, musculoskeletal problems, asthma, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, memory loss, poor concentration and other health problems. However, there is still no definitive answer on the cause. Theories point to stress and other psychological factors; exposure to chemical or infectious agents or other environmental toxins; or side effects of anti-nerve gas agents.
Another of the five studies showed that symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder were more prevalent in Gulf-deployed veterans, and that these symptoms were associated with poorer neuropsychological performance.
According to Roberta F. White, PhD, collaborator on four of the articles and author of the fifth—a review of existing research—there appear to be multiple causes of Gulf veterans’ health problems: "The neuropsychological and health symptom sequelae of Gulf War zone service are multi-determined and cannot easily be explained on the basis of simplistic models of causation," wrote White. "Psychological, historical, and exposure parameters must be considered in the scientific evaluation of this problem."
Since 1994, the departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services have spent $213 million on 224 research projects relating to the health effects of military deployment. VA plans to spend up to an additional $20 million in this area by the end of fiscal 2004.
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