The U.S. Department of Defense and the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund on
June 24 officially dedicated the National Intrepid Center of Excellence, a new
72,000-square-foot medical facility in Bethesda, Md., dedicated to researching,
diagnosing and treating traumatic brain injury in U.S. military personnel,
according to a press release.
David Hovda, director of the UCLA Brain Injury Research Center, played a
major role in the creation of the Intrepid Center and in raising awareness
about traumatic brain injury among soldiers.
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| David Hovda |
“Cerebral concussions are significant injuries that can happen
during a battlefield deployment, such as in an improvised explosive device
(IED) attacks,” Hovda, a UCLA professor of neurosurgery, stated in the
release. “This center will be essential in exploring what happens to the
brain during an IED explosion and offer potential therapies and protocols for
healing.”
Hovda and his UCLA colleagues, Paul Vespa, MD, a professor of
neurosurgery and neurology and director of the neurocritical care program at
UCLA, and Christopher Giza, MD, a UCLA associate professor of neurosurgery and
pediatric neurology, joined forces with Arnold Fisher, honorary chairman of the
Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, to raise awareness of cerebral concussion and to
conceive a plan to build the National Intrepid Center of Excellence.
