An Exploratory Comparison of Water-Tamped and -Untamped Explosive Breaches: Practical Applications for the Tactical Community via a Pilot Study.

Background: Tamping explosive charges used by breachers is an increasingly common technique. The ability to increase the directional effectiveness of the charge used, combined with the potential to reduce experienced overpressure on breachers, makes tamping a desirable tool not only from an efficacy standpoint for breachers but also from a safety standpoint for operational personnel. The long-term consequences of blast exposure are an open question and may be associated with temporary performance deficits and negative health symptomatology.

Field assessment of acute auditory responses to environmental exposures in close quarters tactics training.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate auditory performance of military instructors as part of a training course involving noise and blast exposure. Boothless audiometry was used to estimate the test-retest reliability of the auditory measures under realistic field conditions and to determine risk of acute auditory injury during standard training practices.

Design And Study Sample: Thirteen U.

Bisulfite Amplicon Sequencing Can Detect Glia and Neuron Cell-Free DNA in Blood Plasma.

Sampling the live brain is difficult and dangerous, and withdrawing cerebrospinal fluid is uncomfortable and frightening to the subject, so new sources of real-time analysis are constantly sought. Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) derived from glia and neurons offers the potential for wide-ranging neurological disease diagnosis and monitoring. However, new laboratory and bioinformatic strategies are needed.

Neurotrauma Biomarker Levels and Adverse Symptoms Among Military and Law Enforcement Personnel Exposed to Occupational Overpressure Without Diagnosed Traumatic Brain Injury.

Importance: There is a scientific and operational need to define objective measures of exposure to low-level overpressure (LLOP) and concussion-like symptoms among persons with specialized occupations.

Objective: To evaluate serum levels of neurotrauma biomarkers and their association with concussion-like symptoms reported by LLOP-exposed military and law enforcement personnel who are outwardly healthy and cleared to perform duties.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This retrospective cohort study, conducted from January 23, 2017, to October 21, 2019, used serum samples and survey data collected from healthy, male, active-duty military and law enforcement personnel assigned to operational training at 4 US Department of Defense and civilian law enforcement training sites.