Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health
CDMRP Funds Innovative Research to Better Understand and Treat Brain Injuries
Over 500,000 Service Members experienced a traumatic brain injury between 2000 and 2023 and more than 185,000 Veterans receiving care in the Veterans Affairs health care system have at least one TBI diagnosis.
According to the Department of Defense, TBI is a disruption to brain function caused by an external force, such as a bump, a hit, a jolt to the head, or even a penetrating head injury. Traumatic brain injuries can occur during contact sports, car accidents, falls, or through military training or combat.
In fiscal year 2007, Congress recognized the prevalence and impact of TBI and psychological health conditions on Service Members deployed in combat zones.
In response to the need for additional research, Congress appropriated funds for the Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health Research Program.
"The TBIPHRP funds research to optimize the prevention, assessment and treatment of psychological health or traumatic brain injuries," Dwayne Taliaferro, Ph.D., program manager with CDMRP, said. "The program's research accelerates the development of knowledge and tangible products that improve the health and health care of Service Members and their Families, Veterans, and the American public."
Through FY24, the TBIPHRP received a total of $2.575 billion in congressional appropriations. The TBIPHRP funds preclinical research, clinical research and clinical trials to understand, prevent and assess, and treat TBI and psychological health conditions.
Some of the funded research focused on TBI includes:
A clinical trial at the University of Colorado at Denver, Anschutz Medical Campus, led by Jeffrey Hebert, Ph.D., P.T., is studying irritability, balance, and auditory processing in Veterans with mild TBI. By studying Veterans with extended history of mild TBI versus Veterans without history of mild TBI, they aim to better understand a possible relationship between irritability and balance while standing and which brain structures contribute to the irritability.
"Traumatic brain injury can impact how the brain functions for a very long time after the TBI event and in many different ways," Herbert said.
As of this writing, the team is reaching out to Veteran populations and requesting participants. The results of this study could improve the psychological health of those with mild TBI.
Another TBIPHRP-funded project builds on the idea that TBI disrupts balance control and musculoskeletal injuries disrupt the coordination between muscles and nerves required to control muscles. These types of injuries may interact with each other and in ways that may differ by biological sex. Pinata Sessoms, Ph.D., and the team at the Naval Health Research Center are investigating the relationship between service-related mild TBI and musculoskeletal injuries, and how having one may impact the risk of later experiencing the other. This team is working to develop a screening tool that can help predict physical injuries and mild TBI based on sex and characteristics that may be unique to the experience of U.S. Service Members.
TBIPHRP awarded funding to Pamela VandeVord, Ph.D., and the team at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Center for Injury Biomechanics, to study how exposure to acute stress can change the brain. This research team is studying how acute stress before a TBI may have long-term effects on the brain and how these changes can differ among the sexes. The team already started preclinical small animal studies and initial results show significant behavioral differences between the test groups, suggesting pre-injury stress and biological sex influence behavioral outcomes of a TBI.
In FY24, the CDMRP received over $1.5 billion in congressional appropriations for 35 research programs dedicated to enhancing the lives of Service Members and their Families, Veterans, and the American public. This funding targets critical gaps in research by focusing on innovative, high impact projects that will lead to cures or improvements in patient care, or breakthrough technologies and resources for clinical benefits.
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Last updated Monday, September 23, 2024