CENTRAL-NERVOUS-SYSTEM LESIONS AND CERVICAL DISC HERNIATIONS IN AMATEUR DIVERS

Permanent neuropsychological changes such as memory disturbances and d epression have been found in professional divers, even in those who ha ve never had decompression sickness. The changes are probably the resu lt of intravascular gas bubbles insufficient to cause acute symptoms. We examined amateur divers with long histories of self-contained under water breathing apparatus diving by magnetic resonance imaging and com pared them with normal controls. Hyperintense lesions of the subcortic al cerebral white matter and degenerative changes of the cervical disk s were significantly more common in the divers. 27 of 52 divers had a total of 86 focal hyperintensities versus 10 of 50 controls with 14 fo cal hyperintensities (p<0.01). 32 divers had at least one degenerated intravertebral disc versus 9 controls (P<0.0001). These results sugges t that amateur divers are at risk of accumulating lesions in the centr al nervous system and in cartilage.