University of Pennsylvania researchers have found “significant differences” between normal brains and those of the U.S. officials allegedly exposed to strange phenomena in Cuba.
From 2016 to 2018, dozens of U.S. government personnel working in Cuba reported unexpected cases of neurotrauma from unexplained sonic waves. The incidents left people with various side effects such as trouble sleeping, visual problems, loss of concentration, headaches, ear ringing, and hearing loss.
Doctors have found that the brains of those that experienced the trauma have less white matter, responsible for connecting the brain’s synapses. The loss has focused most in the areas of the brain that control sight and hearing, according to a Tuesday report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The researchers note that they cannot conclude from their study that the low white matter count is a result of the mysterious phenomena, or that the difference in brain composition explains the officials’ symptoms.
The United States has pulled most of its officials out of Cuba while the FBI attempts to find the source or come up with a reasonable explanation of the phenomena. The Trump administration and many U.S. officials have asserted that the neurotrauma is the result of some kind of sonic attack.
Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has accused Cuba of carrying out or facilitating an attack on U.S. personnel.
“Once again we have learned that the Cuban government has failed to keep foreign diplomats, both American and Canadian, safe on their own soil,” Rubio said last year. “And as I have long said, nothing happens in Cuba that the regime does not know about.”
