Explosive blast mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is associated with a variety of symptoms including memory impairment and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Explosive shock waves can cause hippocampal injury in a large animal model. We recently reported a method for detecting brain injury in soldiers with explosive blast mTBI using magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (MRSI). This method is applied in the study of veterans exposed to blast.

The region of the hippocampus injured differentiates explosive blast mTBI from PTSD. MRSI is quite sensitive in detecting and localizing regions of neuronal injury from explosive blast associated with memory impairment ¹⁾