MYSTERY “sonic attacks” on US embassy staff in Cuba left them with shrunken brains, a new study has found.

Diplomats posted to Havana suffered severe health problems including paralysis after they reported hearing strange sounds, leading to a theory it was a sonic attack.

Donald Trump accused the Cuban authorities of being behind the attacks and dozens of staff affected demanded proper examinations of their brains.

The results of that study, done by the University of Pennsylvania, show the embassy workers had less white matter than a comparison group of healthy people.

The difference "is pretty jaw-dropping at the moment," said lead researcher Dr Ragini Verma, a professor of radiology at the university.

"There were group differences all over the brain," she told CNN.

"Especially in an area called the cerebellum, which is also implicated in the kind of clinical symptoms that most of these patients were demonstrating – which is balance, eye movement, dizziness, etc."

The diplomats’ health problems surfaced in 2016 after President Barack Obama reopened the embassy in an effort to improve relations with the Communist-run island nation.

Officials said that some embassy staff suffered such severe symptoms that they had to return to the US earlier than planned, with one case resulting in paralysis.

'JAW DROPPING'

The symptoms began after they heard strange noises in their homes or hotel rooms, resembling buzzing, grinding metal, piercing squeals and humming.

Some reported hearing high-pitched sounds similar to crickets.

It is though the sounds they heard were the result of the exposure to the sonic attacks and were only audible to the victims.

One man cut short his trip to Cuba after numbness spread through all four of his limbs within minutes of climbing into bed at the same hotel where US Embassy and other government workers were housed.

The US State Department said the workers suffered "significant injuries" and they reportedly experienced ear pain, pain, tinnitus, vertigo and trouble thinking.

In response, the US government dramatically reduced the number of diplomats posted in Havana.

Investigations by the State Department and FBI have so far failed to get to the bottom of the source of the attacks, saying they were most likely “from a non-natural source”.

Cuba has denied any involvement and said the latest study is not conclusive.

"The article published today doesn't change the situation," said Johana Tablada, Cuba's deputy head of US affairs.

"The article recognises that the changes detected are minimal, that their conclusions are uncertain and that they can't identify the cause."

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