Protecting Troops From Combat-Related Brain Injuries

By Tom Ventsias
January 11, 2010

The biggest threat to U.S. troops currently deployed to war zones isn’t missiles or bullets, but instead lies buried in the form of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

Blamed for thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of serious injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan, IEDs are also linked to more than 120,000 cases of mild traumatic brain injury, or mTBI. This can occur when soldiers are violently shaken in a vehicle struck by an IED, or by the blast wave when a device detonates near ground troops.

Looking for better ways to prevent, identify and treat combat-related cases of mTBI, University of Maryland researchers have teamed up with military experts and the University of Maryland School of Medicine to investigate new brain imaging techniques, medical treatments and computer models.

“This is a top priority for the military. We have people at the highest levels of the Defense Department asking us to move forward with all due speed,” says Davinder Anand, professor of mechanical engineering and director of the university’s Center for Energetic Concepts Development, or CECD.

The CECD sponsored a symposium on the topic at Maryland last month for the coalition of researchers, and is coordinating bringing them together to compete for major research grants.

The research was jump-started with $75,000 from a collaborative seed grant program between the University of Maryland and the University of Maryland School of Medicine. An additional $1 million comes from the Office of Naval Research and the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head Division, with other significant federal funding expected in the near future, says Anand.

One goal of the research is to improve diagnostic efforts in order to determine a precise “threshold” of physical properties that can cause mTBI. Troops exposed to an IED may initially show no visible signs of injury, Anand explains, but may have suffered brain damage from the violent acceleration or the rapid change in air pressure caused by the blast. If undetected and untreated, mTBI can lead to memory loss, depression and anxiety.