Proper hydration is one of the easiest ways to protect your brain health & improve performance. After all, when your brain is operating at its best, so are you. Learn more hydration strategies:

And it's important to ensure you don't lose too much water during your workout. If your workout lasted more than 1 hour or it was particularly hot or humid out, it's best to supplement with an energy drink to replace the electrolytes & sodium lost while sweating.

Staying hydrated isn't just about *what* you drink — it's also about *when* you drink. According to our friends @hprconline, drinking 14-22 oz of water 2-4 hours prior to exercising — as well as at least 16-32 oz during your workout — is key to optimal performance.

Thanks to the gift of brain donation, the BTR team has increased the understanding of blast exposure on the brain, which will guide future research on mitigation and therapy. Press play to learn more about the process & impact of brain donation.

Their service continues on. All of the groundbreaking research at the @deptofdefense/@usuhealthsci Brain Tissue Repository is made possible thanks to service members & their loved ones, who made the selfless choice to donate their brain upon death.

For example, the BTR is hoping to identify which specific cellular & genetic pathways are affected by blast exposure, which could open the door to development of targeted therapies for service members to prevent or treat potential symptoms.

With this funding the BTR will be able to study IAS and the biology of blast exposure on the brain using state of the art molecular techniques. Currently, IAS can only be seen in postmortem tissue.

Coming together to make a difference. Our friends at the @deptofdefense/@usuhealthsci Brain Tissue Repository were recently awarded $500,000 to conduct a study focused on understanding the effect blast exposure has on service members' brains on a cellular & genetic level.

One of their key goals is to find a way to diagnose IAS in vivo to find better ways to protect & support military personnel from blast exposure. Learn more:

There's still much to learn about IAS, but recent pubs have supported the BTR's reports. The BTR's work is dedicated to military brain health, including advancing knowledge on IAS & the effects that it can have on service members' brains.

The video above, courtesy of Lt. Col. Adam Willis, a program manager at @DARPA, and colleagues helps us understand how the pattern of strain from blast exposure corresponds to what we observe in human tissue.

IAS is a pattern of glial scarring that appears in areas of the brain where there are sudden shifts in tissue density, such as where grey matter and white matter meet. The scars, which currently can only be seen postmortem, are often widespread.

Brains & blast overpressure. What can happen when blast overpressure passes through the human brain?. What you’re watching is a slow-motion video of an artificial head model that is exposed to blast overpressure.

Studies have demonstrated that UCH-L1 & GFAP are strongly associated with patient outcomes. Learn about the most popular blood-based biomarkers in our chart above — and make sure to save it for future use. You never know when a biomarker cheat sheet might come in handy.

UCH-L1 & GFAP have been rigorously researched in military & civilian TBI communities & are used in FDA-approved tests for suspected mild TBIs. Their use could make it quicker & easier to determine which service members need further testing & which could return to duty.

How well do you know your ABCs? Because we're about to throw a whole bunch of acronyms at you. Currently, there are 5 key blood-based biomarkers that have shown the most promise, so far, in #TBI research.

Just like doctors would look for the presence of white blood cells to detect an infection, the presence & prevalence of certain proteins (like UCH-L1 & GFAP) in the blood can signal that the body is responding to a potential injury.

🎶 Let's get technical, tech-ni-cal! 🎵. To understand the value of blood-based biomarkers in assessing #TBIs, it helps to know when they appear & what their presence means. Thankfully, our Scientific Program Leader broke it down so even non-neuroscientists can follow:

Our director (LTC) Dr. Dengler briefly shares the possibilities in the video above.

But that’s just the beginning. The science is evolving and the possibilities are limitless. From tracking TBI recoveries to predicting long-term outcomes, blood-based biomarkers could revolutionize how the field understands, diagnoses & treats TBIs.