The Department of Defense is trying to understand the risk to the human brain from repeated exposure to primary blast but without any diagnosable injury. This mission is defined in U.S. Public Law 116-92 Section 742, the Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. This work requires field studies on site in coordination with military tactical training. A small group of research and engineering professionals at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) has developed research methods conducive to such environments, conducted a series of field studies during military training activities, and has amassed data from over 700 research volunteers. The opportunity at WRAIR is to participate as a member of this team of professionals and collaborate in ongoing research in the evaluation of collected data regarding both environmental exposures and physiological outcomes. The team has recently broadened its research methods to include sound meters in field studies of military training and, with a collaborator, the team has measured very low frequency sound, infrasound, below the threshold of human hearing. These sound meter and infrasound measures are collected to test current hypotheses about key threats to health and performance of personnel in these training environments, and the research team could benefit from collaborators with training in audiological science. The primary role for the NRC opportunity is to review and analyze collected data, working with the team at WRAIR and at collaborating institutions to discover novel associations between environmental exposures and outcomes and documenting those associations in manuscripts for peer review. The topic of low level blast exposure as an occupational risk is relatively new and the published research literature is not large, so this is an opportunity to contribute to a new area of expertise. There will also be opportunities to present work at professional meetings as well as to go in the field with the WRAIR team to collect additional data.

References

Boutté, A. M., Thangavelu, B., Nemes, J., LaValle, C. R., Egnoto, M., Carr, W., & Kamimori, G. H. (2021). Neurotrauma biomarker levels and adverse symptoms among military and law enforcement personnel exposed to occupational overpressure without diagnosed traumatic brain injury. JAMA network open, 4(4), e216445.

Przekwas, A., Garimella, H. T., Chen, Z. J., Zehnbauer, T., Gupta, R. K., Skotak, M., Carr, W. S., & Kamimori, G. H. (2021). Fast running tools for personalized monitoring of blast exposure in military training and operations. Military Medicine, 186, 529-536.

Carr, W., Kelley, A., Toolin, C., & Weber, N. S. (2020). Association of MOS-based blast exposure with medical outcomes. Frontiers in Neurology, 11, 619.