Validation of Brief Objective Neurobehavioral Detectors of Mild TBI

This study was previously paused due to the pandemic.

Many active duty military, national guard, and reserves personnel who served in the recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq were exposed to blasts and other mechanisms of traumatic brain injury (TBI).1,2 Although physical trauma is not unexpected during war fighting, survival after head injury, particularly blast-related, has become a common occurrence only in recent decades. As such, the associated cerebral damage is less well studied and understood, particularly over the long term.

The Brain Injury Outcomes (BIO) is a longitudinal study with the short-term objective of better characterizing multi-modal outcomes in individuals who have sustained a brain injury using a systems medicine approach. Long-term aims include monitoring participants for signs of emerging symptoms or age-related vulnerabilities. Identification of abnormality profiles for multiple severity levels of brain injury (from any source, including blast and non-blast) reflects a second long-range goal. Third, the investigators will examine and compare physiology between Veterans who have sustained a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI) with and without persisting symptoms and various co-morbidities including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. A control group of Veterans who have not sustained a TBI will also be recruited for comparison. Fourth, the investigators intend to facilitate the clinical use of advanced methodologies, such as brain imaging measures, with the brain injured (and other populations). Finally, the investigators will assess methods of analysis, separately and in combination through integration, for multi-modal data in search of diagnostic profiles. Increased knowledge of injury patterns and the trajectory associated with brain injury could contribute to better methods of diagnosis, monitoring and, perhaps, treatment.

This investigation has spawned several sub-studies, one of which was the Validation of Brief Objective Neurobehavioral Detectors (BOND) of Mild TBI, which continues. The investigators have collaborated with Harvard/Boston Children's Hospital in the Angiogenic Signaling Signatures Identified in Stress and Trauma (ASSIST) sub-study. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) will assist in integrating BIO Study multi-modal data. Investigators at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine collaborate with neuroimaging sequences and methods.