James Stone, MD, PhD
James Stone, MD, PhD, a professor in the Department of Radiology and Medical Imaging, has been awarded a four-year, $3.2 million grant from the Department of Defense to expand and enhance a critical tool for protecting the brain health of military personnel. The project, titled “Expansion of the Generalized Blast Exposure Value Tool to Determine Cumulative Blast Exposure Thresholds in Military Populations,” aims to better understand how repeated exposure to blast waves—common in military training and combat—affects the brain over time.
Low-level blast exposures from weapons or breaching exercises can cause cumulative injury and result in subtle but meaningful changes in brain function. To address this, Dr. Stone has been working with CAPT (ret) Stephen Ahlers, PhD, at the Naval Medical Research Command to develop and test the Blast Exposure Threshold Survey and associated Generalized Blast Exposure Value (GBEV) to collect and translate a service member’s history into a single score that helps estimate their risk of blast-associated adverse brain health outcomes.
“I’ve had the privilege of working with Dr. Ahlers for more than 18 years, and our collaboration has led to many key contributions in the field of repeated low-level blast exposure. His deep expertise in military brain health research and unwavering commitment to service member health have been instrumental in development tools like the GBEV. This continued partnership forms an important foundation for advancing our shared goal of protecting brain health in military populations,” said Dr. Stone.
This new effort will bring together data from over 16,000 service member assessments across 10 previous research studies—spanning diverse military populations—to refine and strengthen the GBEV tool. The ultimate goal is to give the Department of Defense a more precise, data-driven way to identify at-risk individuals, guide protective measures, and inform clinical care.
“As we refine the GBEV tool based on the latest available evidence, it is anticipated this will represent a major step forward in how the military monitors, protects, and cares for its service members. This kind of translational research has the potential to directly inform policy, improve training safety, and guide individualized medical decisions for those who serve,” stated Dr. Stone.
Collaborators on the project include the Naval Medical Research Command, Defense Health Agency’s TBI Center of Excellence, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Henry M. Jackson Foundation, and the University of Utah.
Filed Under: Research