Chronic frontal neurobehavioural symptoms in combat-deployed military personnel with and without a history of blast-related mild traumatic brain injury

ABSTRACT

Objective

This study evaluated frontal behavioural symptoms, via the FrSBe self-report, in military personnel with and without a history of blast-related mild traumatic brain injury (mild TBI).

Methods

Prospective observational cohort study of combat-deployed service members leveraging 1-year and 5-year demographic and follow up clinical outcome data.

Results

The blast mild TBI group (n = 164) showed greater frontal behavioural symptoms, including clinically elevated apathy, disinhibition, and executive dysfunction, during a 5-year follow-up, compared to a group of combat-deployed controls (n = 107) without mild TBI history or history of blast exposure. We also explored changes inbehaviourall symptoms over a 4-year span, which showed clinically significant increases in disinhibition in the blast mild TBI group, whereas the control group did not show significant increases in symptoms over time.

Conclusion

Our findings add to the growing evidence that a proportion of individuals who sustain mild TBI experience persistent behavioural symptoms. We also offer a demonstration of a novel use of the FrSBe as a tool for longitudinal symptom monitoring in a military mild TBI population.

KEYWORDS:

• Mild traumatic brain injury
• executive function
• long term outcomes
• military service members
• frontal behavioural symptoms

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the service members, their families, commanding officers, and clinical providers and the EVOLVE Study clinical support team, including Dr Beverly Scott, Katelyn Kern, Brie Sullivan, Max Tuvloff, Manny Kaur, Morgan Hall, and Sarah Conger, for whom compensation was provided for their contributions to the study.

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02699052.2023.2209740

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke under Grant R01NS091618 awarded to C. Mac Donald