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Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
Division of Psychiatry and Neuroscience
Division of Psychiatry and Neuroscience Mission
Conduct research on sleep loss, brain trauma, operational stress, and mental/behavioral problems to enhance the resiliency and performance of Soldiers, reduce casualties, and enhance functioning in combat, garrison, and training environments.
Total Personnel ~100: 13 military officers, 19 enlisted Soldiers, 19 GS civilians, and contractors.
Department of Military Psychiatry
Mission: Conduct psychological and behavioral health research to maintain the mental health and well-being of Soldiers and Families.
Mental health problems are some of the most common and disabling conditions that affect military service members, particularly service members who have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. The work involves delivering a series of products and solutions to prevent mental health problems, improve resiliency, and mitigate the effects of deployment and combat stressors, and other military stressors such as those encountered during training. The work is conducted in collaboration with WRAIR’s OCONUS lab in Europe, the U.S. Army Medical Research Unit-Europe. Products fall into three main categories: information products, assessment tools, and Soldier and unit-level interventions, including randomized trials. The research has led directly to multiple new policy initiatives and services to help military service members before, during, and after deployment, including deployment cycle support program services and deployment-related screening programs.
Department of Behavioral Biology
Mission and Assets: Investigates and develops methods to sustain soldier performance during continuous operations, when there is little or no opportunity to sleep. This internationally renowned human sleep deprivation research program conducts research in field settings and utilizing an 8-bed sleep research suite outfitted with polysomnographic monitoring equipment and PC-based performance testing equipment.
The work involves developing products to sustain alertness and performance over 3 days of sleep loss, investigating factors that determine the basis of individual differences in resilience during sleep loss, testing of pharmacological strategies for reversing sleep loss-induced cognitive performance deficits, and developing a comprehensive sleep/performance management program for sustaining soldier performance during continuous operations.
Department of Applied Neurobiology
Mission: Conducts research on militarily relevant brain trauma resulting from ballistic, blast or neurotoxin exposures and identifies neuroprotection strategies. Research utilizes animal models (rodent and non-human primates), neurophysiology, neuropharmacology, behavioral protocols, and cellular and molecular biology techniques.
Current and future plans include 1) establish a prototype rapid triage and diagnostic tool for combat casualty care (CCC) (titled Biomarker Assessment for Neurotrauma Diagnosis and Improved Triage System; BANDITS), 2) test advanced development neuroprotection therapeutics in several experimental models of brain trauma, 3) investigate the role of cortical spreading depression as a mechanism of secondary injury following brain trauma, 4) study the mechanisms of penetrating ballistic brain injuries in a new rodent model, 5) test experimental therapeutics in limiting and preventing sequelae of silent brain seizures, 6) test neuropsychological consequences of chemical warfare nerve agent (CWNA) exposures and development countermeasures in rodents and non-human primates. More…
