Oregon Public Broadcasting

New research is showing a surprising connection between injured soldiers and Northwest salmon.

Soldiers experience brain injuries out on the battlefield and salmon get injured by trying to negotiate their way around hydroelectric dams.

Now a scientist has found a way to tell if a salmon has a brain injury -- similar to a soldier’s head trauma. Richland correspondent Anna King reports.

Biologist Ann Miracle observes juvenile Chinook salmon inside a lab at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington.

She found that when a fish gets a brain injury, small proteins in its brain cells are broken up. By detecting those proteins she can tell if the fish was injured or not.

Ann Miracle: “We can use that, or wildlife operators can use that to better assess how they operate their facilities or what management plans they can put in place to prevent or mitigate that damage.”

Miracle tested the fish by releasing them upstream of a dam on the Snake River.

Then she let them go through a spillway. Afterwards she collected the fish downstream and tested their brains for the broken proteins.

Scientists at a private lab in Florida are developing a similar method for testing humans with head trauma.

The findings might lead to quicker diagnosis of brain injuries on the battlefield.

The fish study is published in the Public Library of Science ONE – an online scientific journal.