Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 15, 2026
Low-intensity Blast Wave Model for Preclinical Assessment of Closed-head Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in Rodents
Published on: November 6, 2020
Changes in personality after mild traumatic brain injury from primary blast vs. blunt forces
Mario F Mendez1, Emily M Owens, Elvira E Jimenez
1Department of Neurology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles, USA. mmendez@UCLA.edu
Introduction:
Injuries from explosive devices can cause blast-force injuries, including mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI).
Objective:
This study investigated changes in personality from blast-force mTBI in comparison to blunt-force mTBI.
Methods:
Clinicians and significant others assessed US veterans who sustained pure blast-force mTBI (n = 12), as compared to those who sustained pure blunt-force mTBI (n = 12). Inclusion criteria included absence of any mixed blast-blunt trauma and absence of post-traumatic stress disorder. Measures included the Interpersonal Measure of Psychopathy (IM-P), the Big Five Inventory (BFI), the Interpersonal Adjectives Scale (IAS) and the Frontal Systems Behaviour Scale (FrSBe).
Results:
There were no group differences on demographic or TBI-related variables. Compared to the Blunt Group, the Blast Group had more psychopathy on the IM-P, with anger, frustration, toughness and boundary violations and tended to more neuroticism on the BFI. When pre-TBI and post-TBI assessments were compared on the IAS and FrSBe, only the patients with blast force mTBI had become more cold-hearted, aloof-introverted and apathetic.
Conclusion:
These results suggest that blast forces alone can cause negativistic behavioural changes when evaluated with selected measures of personality. Further research on isolated blast-force mTBI should focus on these personality changes and their relationship to blast over-pressure.
