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Researchers from the National Institutes of Health published a pair of studies on Monday, which found few clinical differences between patients with the mysterious disease known as “Havana syndrome” and healthy comparison groups.
in A studyNIH researchers closely examined the brains of people believed to have Havana syndrome and found no consistent evidence of brain damage, and no differences between that group and a healthy comparison group.
in the Second studyScientists conducted a battery of tests on 86 US government employees and family members who reported having Havana syndrome, compared them to 30 people with similar jobs, and found that the two groups were similar on most clinical and biomarker measures. the same.
The mysterious illness first appeared in 2011. In late 2016, a group of diplomats stationed in the Cuban capital, Havana, began reporting symptoms related to head trauma, including dizziness and severe headaches. In the following years, there have been cases around the world, including at least 60 incidents in Bogotá, Colombia and Vienna, Austria. About 1,500 cases were reported to the US government in 96 different states last year, officials said, but the reported incidence has dropped sharply in recent years.
The illness was long suspected to be the result of a campaign targeted by an enemy of the United States, but the US intelligence community said last year that He cannot connect any matter To a foreign adversary, determining that an unexplained illness is the result of a US adversary's targeted campaign.
But the disease — and its cause — has remained frustratingly unclear to both the intelligence community and the medical community.
Dr. David Relman, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford who has worked on previous studies of people with Havana syndrome, said in an editorial published Monday with the study that the study on the brain may appear to be “all-or-nothing.” . serious” occurred in these cases, reaching this conclusion “would not be unsolicited advice”.
Previous work has found evidence of anomalies, and the same is true for research that has conducted a wide variety of experiments. Because the disease can look different in each person, doctors said that they do not have special tests that can fully determine their error.
“Clearly, new, sensitive, standardized, non-invasive tests of the nervous system, especially those involving the vestibular system, are needed for more specific blood markers of different types of cellular damage,” Relman wrote.
One problem facing the medical community is that there is still no clear definition for Havana syndrome – or what the government calls “abnormal health problems” or AHIs. These tests are performed in some cases long after symptoms appear, making it difficult to understand what is happening physically.
In the year In 2022, an intelligence panel investigating the cause of AHIs said. Some parts It may have been caused “in reality” by “confused electromagnetic energy” from an external source.
But Relman points out that there is a relative lack of information about the biological effects of electromagnetic and acoustic energy on the brain, even though this is what actually causes problems in people with Havana syndrome.
Some current and former CIA officers said the CIA task force tasked with investigating the Havana syndrome played down the investigation. previously reported.
And some patients and former officials say they have been questioned and, in some cases, fired by the Trump administration in the months and years since the first cases emerged.
Although uncertain about the situation, Congress in 2010
Relman, like any other well-known clinical syndrome, such as the Gulf War syndrome and now the Havana syndrome, described scientists as “uncertainty, complexity, the need for interdisciplinary approaches, insufficient data or misinformation, and the difficulty of dealing with the subject.” This is politically charged and divisive.
“Going forward, we must address the institutional failures and vulnerabilities that contributed to these outcomes,” Relman wrote. Surveillance systems designed to identify early cases within government agencies and independent panels to review emerging data have been advocated.
“Prejudices and ill-founded assumptions must be abandoned,” he wrote.
The neuroimaging study compared the brains of 81 people who were thought to have Havana syndrome with the brains of 48 people who did not have the condition. 29 members of the comparison group had the same occupation as 81 in the patient group.
The scientists used high-resolution diffusion imaging known as MRI to look for differences in the participants' brains. This type of MRI can determine whether brain matter is normal or if there are problems by visualizing the white matter fibers in the brain.
When the researchers compared the two groups, they found no significant differences in brain structures and measurements.
“These findings suggest that the origin of symptoms in participants with AHI may not be related to brain damage identified by MRI,” the study concluded.
However, there are limitations to this study. The control group was small and completely unrelated to Havana syndrome. The first scans were done within 14 days of the person reporting the event that triggered their symptoms, so the results may have been different if done at a different time.
The results of the study differ from previous imaging studies that have found evidence of some brain abnormalities, but previous studies have been done with smaller numbers of participants.
In the second study, researchers tested hearing, balance, vision and neuropsychological status, and blood biomarkers, in two groups.
There were no significant clinical differences between the two groups in terms of hearing or vision, nor were there any differences when the researchers examined the inner ear or blood for certain biomarkers. Cognitive tests were similar.
There were some differences in self-reported symptoms, however, fatigue, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, balance disorders and some neurobehavioral issues.
Headache was a common concern among participants with Havana syndrome. Most developed persistent daily headaches, the study found, but only eight were diagnosed with new-onset migraines.
“Although we did not identify significant differences in participants with AHIS, it is important to acknowledge that these symptoms are very real, cause significant disruption to the lives of those affected, and can be prolonged, disabling and difficult to treat,” said Dr. Leighton Chan, in one of the papers. lead author and chief scientific officer of the NIH Clinical Center, said in a news release.
The study authors noted several limitations to their study, including that some of the assessments, although sensitive, were not specific, and some were not clinically applicable, so the extent of their impact is not known.
Also, no psychiatric evaluations were done. Anxiety, depression, pain, and fatigue can affect balance, hearing, and cognitive testing, making it difficult to interpret abnormalities.
The study found that whatever causes Havana syndrome appears to produce symptoms “without persistent or detectable physiological changes.” Absence of evidence of brain damage does not mean that no damage was present or did not occur during AHI.
“Alternatively, the physiological effects of the 'attack' are so varied and unusual that they cannot be detected with current methods and sample sizes,” the study said.