Improve understanding of blast-induced brain injury The Army should increase its efforts to protect soldiers against blast-induced brain injury, with increased resources for testing, experimentation, and combat helmet development. In the longer term, new materials and technologies could be used to mitigate the blast wave through improved helmet design or off-board protection from robotic teammates.In the near term, computational modeling and physical experimentation can be used to assess various existing helmet designs and their response to blasts of various sizes and locations.Computer models and physical experiments have suggested that existing Army helmets provide some modest protection against blast waves and that improved helmet designs, such as adding a modular face shield, could reduce blast pressure in the brain by up to 80 percent.The Army does not currently have a requirement to protect against brain injury from exposure to blast pressure waves from explosions (aka primary blast injury).Multiple theories exist, each with varying degrees of support. Primary blast pressure waves are an important mechanism for brain injury, but the specific causal mechanism is unclear.DoD studies have also found higher rates of concussion and post-concussion associated symptoms among individuals with a history of prolonged exposure to low-level blasts from breaching and shoulder-fired weapons.DoD studies have demonstrated that some servicemembers experience cognitive deficits in delayed verbal memory, visual-spatial memory, and executive function after firing heavy weapons, even within allowable limits.Emerging evidence suggests that servicemembers may be exposed to high levels of blast overpressure (the pressure wave that comes from explosions) when firing heavy weapons, such as the Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle, even in training.Hundreds of thousands of servicemembers suffer from traumatic brain injury (TBI), including from exposure to blasts from improvised explosive devices (IED).Renewing the National Security Consensus.
Some explosives can explode under certain conditions if they are not safely stored.
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