Author: Luke Horwath

For most of history, battlefield medicine was about treating only visible injuries. Cuts, fractures, and shrapnel wounds defined military trauma and critically impacted generations of soldiers. But the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, characterized by increased use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) introduced a new and invisible wound known as blast-induced traumatic brain injury (TBI). While more than 75% of these cases are classified as mild TBI, they typically lack visible or physical damage on patients through conventional scans and can lead to debilitating long-term symptoms such as headaches, memory loss, and post-traumatic stress disorder.