Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 11, 2026
Development of an Uncomplicated Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Model Modified by Weight-Drop Method and Evidenced by Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Published on: April 11, 2025
Screening for mild traumatic brain injury in the presence of psychiatric comorbidities
Julie C Chapman1, Allan M Andersen, Lauren A Roselli
1War Related Illness and Injury Study Center, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA. Julie.Chapman@va.gov
Objective:
To determine whether or not a battery of neurobehavioral tests, the Brief Objective Neurobehavioral Detector (BOND), could detect mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) among a group of psychiatric inpatients with numerous substance-related and medical comorbidities. The 16-item BOND is comprised of neurologic examination tasks and has been shown to correlate with radiologic and cognitive findings in previous studies.
Design:
Masked comparison.
Setting:
Inpatient psychiatric unit at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, DC.
Participants:
Patients (N=51) sequentially admitted for suicidal ideation in the context of various psychiatric disorders.
Interventions:
No intervention.
Main Outcome Measure:
BOND total and subtest scores.
Results:
Forty-three patients were eligible and analyzed. Twenty-seven had sustained an mTBI in the distant past, and 16 had never sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI) (non-TBI group). On average, the mTBI group demonstrated a significantly greater number of abnormal subtests on the BOND (mean, 7.22) than did the non-TBI group (mean, 4.50; P=.003). Although the BOND significantly correlated with the presence of mTBI, it did not correlate with any of the psychiatric, substance-related, or medical comorbidities. Multiple regressions indicated that the BOND total score was not explained by age, posttraumatic stress disorder diagnosis, or any combination of the psychiatric, substance-related, or medical comorbidities. High rates of sensitivity (70%) and specificity (69%) were found.
Conclusions:
The results of this pilot study suggest that the inexpensive, brief, and objective BOND instrument may be a useful screening tool for the detection of subtle neurologic brain abnormalities after mTBI, even in the presence of substantial comorbidities.
