Center for Occupational Blast Research and Assessment

The Center for Occupational Blast Research and Assessment (COBRA) is the Emory Human Performance Institute’s translational tactical brain health platform, focused on preventing and mitigating the effects of repetitive occupational blast-overpressure exposure on Service Members and tactical operators.

COBRA brings together expertise in neuroscience, neuroimaging, cognitive and sensorimotor assessment, psychological health, and human performance to investigate how repeated blast exposure may affect brain structure and function, behavior, physical performance, and long-term brain health. By integrating exposure characterization with multimodal brain-health and functional assessments, COBRA aims to improve understanding of individual responses to blast exposure and identify opportunities for earlier detection, risk reduction, and targeted intervention.

The Center connects research with real-world operational needs. Its translational approach is designed to support the evaluation of assessment methods, exposure-monitoring strategies, and potential protective interventions, while examining their scientific validity, feasibility, and potential for implementation at scale. Longitudinal research can help characterize relationships between exposure history, changes in brain health, and cognitive, psychological, and sensorimotor outcomes over time.

COBRA matters because the effects of repetitive occupational blast exposure may not be fully captured by traditional injury assessments alone. Better approaches to characterizing exposure and evaluating brain health could help inform decisions about monitoring, prevention, intervention, and readiness while advancing the evidence needed to protect the long-term health of those working in high-risk operational environments.

Through Emory’s interdisciplinary research and clinical network, COBRA aims to bridge scientific discovery and practical application, generating evidence to inform brain-health strategies for Service Members and tactical operators. Its longer-term vision is to help advance scalable, evidence-based approaches that preserve brain health, support operational performance, and reduce the potential consequences of repetitive occupational blast exposure.

The COBRA platform delivers controlled, repeatable, and scalable open-air blasts that mirror the low-level, repeated exposures service members experience during training. Within two to three hours of repetitive blast, exposed swine showed elevated neurofilament light chain in cerebrospinal fluid and elevated glial fibrillary acidic protein in plasma compared with controls, with upward trends in tau and UCH-L1.

Diffusion MRI revealed early microstructural changes in the brain about two hours after exposure, and histology showed signs of early microglial activation in white matter. Together, these findings suggest that measurable brain changes occur within hours of occupational-level blast, even in the absence of outward symptoms.

Tools developed through this work include the field-deployable open-air porcine blast platform, an instrumented 3D-printed pig headform for pre-test calibration, and a standardized hyperacute assessment pipeline that integrates imaging, fluid biomarkers, and histology. As one of the few large-animal models of repetitive occupational-level open-air blast, this work provides an evidence base to inform exposure guidelines that protect the brain health and readiness of service members.