The National Institutes of Health completed two yearslong studies that did not find any noticeable differences in the brains of people who are believed to have “Havana syndrome” and those who don’t.
“Havana syndrome” is the name given to a mysterious illness that a small group of American diplomats and spies overseas have reported since 2016. U.S. diplomats and members of the intelligence community in different locations reported symptoms that include dizziness, head pain, vision problems, cognitive troubles, vertigo, and possibly traumatic brain injuries beginning at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba in 2016.
The results of the studies, which the NIH Clinical Center conducted over nearly five years, came out on Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine. Doctors evaluated more than 80 government employees and their adult family members, most of whom were stationed abroad.
Doctors found no significant evidence of MRI-detectable brain injuries in those who said they were experiencing “Havana syndrome” and the healthy control group.
“Our goal was to conduct thorough, objective and reproducible evaluations to see if we could identify structural brain or biological differences in people who reported [anomalous health incidents, or AHI],” said Leighton Chan, chief of rehabilitation medicine and acting chief scientific officer of the NIH Clinical Center and lead author on one of the papers. “While we did not identify significant differences in participants with AHIs, it’s important to acknowledge that these symptoms are very real, cause significant disruption in the lives of those affected and can be quite prolonged, disabling and difficult to treat.”
The investigators involved in the study said the results do not completely rule out the possibility of “an adverse event impacting the brain,” according to Dr. Carlo Pierpaoli, senior investigator for medical imaging with the NIH.
“It is possible that individuals with an AHI may be experiencing the results of an event that led to their symptoms, but the injury did not produce the long-term neuroimaging changes that are typically observed after severe trauma or stroke,” Pierpaoli added. “We hope these results will alleviate concerns about AHI being associated with severe neurodegenerative changes in the brain.”
Patients within the AHI group self-reported high rates of fatigue, post-traumatic stress, and depression. Over 40% of AHI patients met the criteria for neurological disorders that are highly correlated with increased stress, depression, and anxiety.
Co-investigator on the study and neuropsychologist at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center Dr. Louis French said the “post-traumatic stress and mood symptoms reported are not surprising given [their] ongoing concerns,” but they “can have significant negative impacts on the recovery process.”
Dr. David Relman, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, published an editorial on the NIH research in JAMA, stating there were “multiple problems” with the methodology of the NIH studies.
Relman, who was involved in several investigations of the initial reports of “Havana syndrome,” said the NIH’s findings do not take into account the “abrupt-onset, location-dependent sensory phenomena” described by patients as the onset of the immediate symptoms.
The general problem of lacking “generic, noninvasive, and sensitive methods for measuring brain function at the level of molecules, cells, and pathways,” Relman argues, may also contribute to the inability to determine the exact cause of the symptoms and monitor long-term effects.
A State Department spokesperson said the department is “reviewing the findings” and added, “The Secretary’s top priority remains the health, safety, and security of the Department’s personnel and family members, and the Secretary remains resolute in ensuring that the Department does everything possible to ensure employees and family members who report an AHI are treated with respect and compassion and receive timely access to medical care and all benefits to which they are entitled.”
Last year, a highly anticipated intelligence community review found that it’s “very unlikely” a foreign adversary was responsible for some sort of attack that led to the symptoms people experienced.
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Two unnamed intelligence community agencies have “moderate to high confidence” that a foreign adversary is “very unlikely” to be responsible, while three others are at moderate confidence, according to the report. Two other agencies believe it’s “unlikely” an adversary was responsible for it but said it with “low confidence” based on collection information gaps.
This report followed a CIA report from a year earlier that also found a foreign adversary was most likely not responsible for “Havana syndrome.”