Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 7, 2026
Low-intensity Blast Wave Model for Preclinical Assessment of Closed-head Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in Rodents
Published on: November 6, 2020
Longitudinal analysis highlights structural changes in grey- and white-matter within military personnel exposed to
Allen A Champagne1,2, Nicole S Coverdale1, Christopher Skinner3
1Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to determine whether gray matter volume and diffusion-based metrics in associated white matter changed in breachers who had neuroimaging performed at two timepoints. A secondary purpose was to compare these changes in a group who had a one-year interval between their imaging timepoints to a group that had a two-year interval between imaging.
Methods:
Between timepoints, clusters with significantly different gray matter volume were used as seeds for reconstruction of associated structural networks using diffusion metrics.
Results:
Of 92 eligible participants, 62 had imaging at two timepoints, 36 with a one-year interval between scans and 26 with a two-year interval between scans. A significant effect of time was documented in the midcingulate cortex, but there was no effect of timepoint (1 versus 2 years). The associated white matter in this cluster had three regions with differences in fractional anisotropy compared to baseline, while there was no effect of timepoint (1 versus 2 years).
Conclusions:
This study provides preliminary evidence that military personnel involved in repetitive exposure to sub-concussive blast overpressures may experience changes to both gray matter and white matter structures.
