Breachers · instructors
4.0–6.7 psi
10–20 detonations per training day. Instructors exposed to every student shot across years of indoor courses.
For blast-exposed populations
A field-portable cognitive-motor protocol developed at York University — sensitive where standard neurocognitive batteries miss. How a person performs in the protocol is indicative of their capacity to perform the operational task.
§ 01 — The gap
Up to 27% of Canadian Armed Forces personnel experience persistent post-concussive symptoms after mTBI. Repetitive low-level blast exposure produces measurable cognitive-motor deficits — and the neurocognitive tests currently deployed in the field have been shown, repeatedly, not to pick them up.
Breachers · instructors
10–20 detonations per training day. Instructors exposed to every student shot across years of indoor courses.
Artillery · M777
33-round daily limit; ISIS-campaign crews exceeded 10,000 rounds in months. No published intervention data for this population.
Carl Gustaf · shoulder-fired
87% of blasts exceed the 4 psi safe threshold. Highest per-event overpressure of any weapon system in regular training.
Snipers · .50 cal
2025 research: snipers show lower neurocognitive performance not mediated by mental health status — a functional deficit that existing tests underread.
Standard neurocognitive tests — choice reaction time, delayed matching, executive function screens — are not sensitive to low-level blast. Cognitive-motor integration is
§ 02 — What we measure
Thinking and moving are not separate systems. The protocol demands both at once — under three-dimensional spatial, vestibular, and rule-reversal load. Thirty-six behavioral features per session, analyzed over the course of training as a trajectory rather than a snapshot.
The operator holds and manipulates information in a three-dimensional environment while moving through it. This is the demand profile of nearly every operational task that matters — and nearly nothing standard batteries test.
Standard and reversed stimulus–response mappings run in the same session. The dissociation between the two conditions is where low-level blast injury becomes visible — the measure that separated blast-exposed breachers from controls in the 2020 Vartanian & Tenn study.
Tandem walk, head turns, balance demand layered onto the cognitive task. The vestibular system is among the first to degrade under cumulative overpressure; the protocol makes that visible in the operator’s performance envelope.
Each session yields 36 behavioral features — reaction time, path length, peak velocity, directional error, trajectory shape. Across sessions, they form a manifold: how this operator’s strategy evolves. By session four, trajectory properties identify likely responders within three training days.
§ 03 — Evidence
Eight weeks. Seven participants — working-age adults with persistent post-concussive symptoms averaging 38 months post-injury. Functionally stuck despite conventional care. The outcomes that moved are precisely the outcomes where DRDC’s blast-exposure research has found the largest differences.
Measure alignment
| DRDC research measure | Protocol outcome |
|---|---|
| SF-36 Energy | +68% improvement — exact match |
| RPQ-3 (early symptoms) | Reduced — exact match |
| RPQ-13 (late symptoms) | −23% reduction — exact match |
| BrDI (cognitive-motor integration) | 3D spatial evolution of the same paradigm |
| DTI white matter | Preliminary recovery validated |
| fMRI functional connectivity | Limbic-striatal-thalamic reorganization |
§ 04 — Pathways
From a single-session supplement slotted into an existing study protocol, through to a full assess–monitor–intervene pipeline built into the training cycle. Each pathway preserves existing batteries and adds the measure they’ve been missing.
One 20-minute session added pre- and post-training exposure. No changes to the existing protocol. Pre/post behavioral trajectory per participant, correlated with biomarker and symptom change. Lowest-friction entry point.
Waitlist-controlled randomized trial. n=100, blast-exposed personnel with elevated RPQ or SF-36 Energy deficits. Sixteen sessions over eight weeks, or compressed to sixteen days. Primary outcomes: the measures DRDC’s own studies have established.
Concurrent with weapons training: does regular cognitive-motor work build reserve that attenuates cumulative degradation? Most critical for instructors, who accumulate exposure across years with no existing countermeasure.
The full pipeline — baseline, weekly monitoring during training, post-training, adaptive intervention when trajectories flag, three/six/twelve-month follow-up. Assess, monitor, intervene. First closed-loop system from blast event to verified recovery.
§ 05 — Deployment
§ Next
We’re building this with defence research partners, academic co-investigators, and occupational health programs. If you’re considering cognitive-motor assessment in a blast-exposed population, we want to hear from you.