Force Protection, MUSC make progress on brain injury research

After months spent researching and developing test platforms, Force Protection and the Medical University of South Carolina have conducted the first successful test blast in their research of traumatic brain injury.

The tests are a part of the partnership between Force Protection and MUSC to explore the effects on the brain from blasts and explosions seen by troops in the Middle East.

Until recently, the only kind of brain injury studied was concussive. But now, researchers at the Force Protection Center for Brain Research at MUSC are looking at blast-related damage, or traumatic brain injury.

Neurologist Mark George takes the results from the blasts performed at the Force Protection test site and uses them at the MUSC center to examine the effects on the brain.

“The area we’re trying to go into is a black hole,” George said. “It’s been absolutely ignored for so long.”

The tests are done at Force Protection’s test site outside Edgefield, 302 acres that it also uses in the research and development of its armored vehicles and other products.

A metal bar is set about 6 feet high, and four “phantom” heads are placed on top, about 1.5 meters apart, said Keith Williams, Force Protection’s research and development range director. Then a Christmas ornament is filled with C-4 high explosives and set off a few feet from the pole.

Before and after the blast, the phantom heads, composed of a gel and celery splayed in a pattern similar to the brain, are scanned at MUSC.

Although the celery appears to be the same after the blast, researchers are finding that it is not, George said. The fibers don’t transfer water post-blast, and researchers are finding a parallel between the fibers in the celery and ability of nerve cells in the brain to transfer information.

The information gleaned from these tests can be used not only in developing better, more protective equipment, but also in treating traumatic brain injury.

George estimates that as many as 1 in 3 service members returning from the Middle East has been exposed to blasts that cause traumatic brain injury.

And because the injury is not easily diagnosed, many cases are going unreported.

The area of traumatic brain injury has not been the subject of much research, because the blasts being sustained would previously have been fatal.

But as technology has advanced, with armored vehicles absorbing much more of the explosion, George says service members are surviving but are coming home with brain injury that often goes undetected.

“Traumatic brain injury is a fraying of the cable, and that is below the resolution of most scanners,” George said in an interview last year when the partnership was announced.

Force Protection and MUSC are now working to publish their findings, apply for grants and seek out partnerships with the Defense Department, which is doing similar research.