A private foundation is set to take a big leap into the development of diagnostic tools aimed at saving U.S. servicemembers from a lifetime of blast-related brain injuries and debilitating conditions that can result in suicidal ideation.
The Invisible Wounds Foundation, a Chicago-based non-profit, recently announced the creation of what it calls its Brain Health Collaborative, which is comprised of doctors, researchers, academic institutions and philanthropic supporters.
The group will advise the foundation on seeding money for promising research that will, as an example, advance technologies that can accurately detect a difficult type of brain injury to diagnose in servicemembers — traumatic brain injuries induced by repetitive, low-level exposure to blast waves. In short, the goal is to fund efforts that make what is invisible visible, so that clinicians can guide treatments and rehabilitation.
A big danger for U.S. forces
Low-level blast exposure is commonplace in the military, especially among special forces. Even firing a weapon in training can expose service members to the effects of blast waves, which can then result in brain injuries over time and through multiple exposures. They in turn can cause headaches, blurred vision, sleeplessness, irritability, anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation.
These types of injuries are often categorized as so-called mild traumatic brain injuries, an imprecise term that does not capture the breadth of damage they can cause. Currently, there is no such diagnostic to detect them.
“Research has linked low-level blasts, which servicemembers are exposed to during training and in combat, to increased occurrences of brain injuries, mental health conditions and suicides,” said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.
Sen. Moran is leading an effort in the Senate to pass the Precision Brain Health Research Act of 2025, which focuses on researching critical brain health issues among veterans suffering from repetitive low-level blast exposures sustained during military service.
That’s important work, to be sure. But the Invisible Wounds Foundation is targeted at the other end of the continuum – preventing those blast injuries in the first place among servicemembers.
“Despite years of government-funded research, there is still no FDA-approved diagnostic method for blast-induced TBI. Our initiative will fund critical research into blast-induced TBI—focused on diagnostics and prevention,” the foundation said in a statement.
Brain experts guide decisions
The foundation’s forthcoming decisions on specific diagnostics to fund are guided by a high-powered scientific advisory panel of brain injury experts led by Dr. James Kelly, chief medical scientist. Kelly is founding director of the National Intrepid Center of Excellence at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, which treats brain injuries in the military.
It is also guided by a board of directors that includes Dr. Daniel Perl, one of the world’s leading experts on traumatic brain injury, and Dr. Brian Edlow, co-director of Massachusetts General Neuroscience. Full disclosure: I also sit on the board.
The foundation is set to fund projects beginning early next year. It is now in the process of identifying the most promising for developing a diagnostic and preventing or mitigating TBIs. It is also preparing funding for research that will advance development of treatments.
Slow progress thus far
There is an urgency to the foundation’s efforts because the U.S. military has neglected research into blast wave injuries and their prevention.
Between 2010 and 2023, Congress funded $2.97 billion worth of research projects for traumatic brain injury prevention in the U.S. military, according to a Congressional Research Service study. While the Defense Department calls the overall effort “successful but disparate,” that’s being generous. Despite the spending, the armed forces lack a successful diagnostic or FDA-approved treatment for brain injury from repeated blast exposure.
What’s more, most of the efforts Congress funded have been aimed at mitigating the effects of post traumatic stress disorder, a psychological condition, versus the physiological changes associated with blast waves.
Mild traumatic brain injury, such as from blast waves, is “the most common traumatic brain injury affecting military personnel; however, it is the most difficult to diagnose and the least well understood,” researchers reported in the Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.
With the foundation’s help to jumpstart and fast track research into diagnostic tools, the hope is that servicemembers can be saved from a tragic trajectory.
