Modeling the neurobehavioral consequences of blast-induced traumatic brain injury spectrum disorder and identifying related biomarkers

Blast induced traumatic brain injury (bTBI) has become the most common type of military head injuries affecting close to 500,000 service members. bTBI is a spectrum disorder ranging from the severe form that is frequently comorbid with polytrauma to the mild form that shares symptoms and/or comorbid with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The epidemiologic scale and complexity of bTBI and closely related neuropsychiatric conditions present especially significant short- and long-term challenges for the military health care system. Due to the complexity of physical forces generated by explosive blast combined with our limited understanding how these forces interact with the biological entity (physical-to-biological coupling), modeling bTBI poses special challenges. The goal of this chapter is to: 1) familiarize readers with experimental modeling of bTBI, including physical and biological considerations toward high-fidelity modeling; 2) provide a brief overview of bTBI animal models; 3) present some of the neurobehavioral consequences of bTBI; and 4) identify related biomarkers for the diagnosis and monitoring of the disease.