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Opportunities in Neuroscience for Future Army Applications
Summary
Emerging neuroscience opportunities have great potential to improve soldier performance and enable the development of technologies to increase the effectiveness of soldiers on the battlefield. Advances in research and investments by the broader science and medical community promise new insights for future military applications. These include traditional areas of interest to the Army, such as learning, decision making, and performance under stress, as well as new areas, such as cognitive fitness, brain–computer interfaces, and biological markers of neural states.
Advances in research-enabling technologies, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and computational neuroscience, have resulted in instrumentation and techniques that can better assess the neural basis of cognition and allow the visualization of brain processes. These advances have the potential to provide new measures of training and learning for soldiers while also shedding fresh light on the traditional approaches to behavioral science used by the Army. Most current Army neuroscience research is conducted with little regard given to its longer-term potential for military operations. The report discusses a spectrum of ongoing efforts, with an emphasis on nonmedical applications and on current research that is likely to lead to insights and opportunities for possible military application.
STUDY APPROACH
The Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology) (ASAALT) asked the National Research Council to conduct a study of neuroscience in terms of its potential to support military applications. Chapter 1 discusses the statement of task and explains how the report responds to each of the tasks.
Members of the Committee on Opportunities in Neuroscience for Future Army Applications, set up in response to the ASAALT request, had expertise not only in traditional and emerging subdisciplines of neuroscience but also in research and development (R&D), in military operations and medicine, and in training specialties such as memory and learning, assessment, decision making, prediction, and reading intentionality. The short biographies of the committee members, given in Appendix A, include their specialties.
Early briefings on the scope of Army research in neuroscience provided the basis for dividing the committee into data-gathering teams. The committee’s meetings and data-gathering activities are described in Appendix B. The various streams of information were brought together and a consensus was reached on the conclusions and recommendations of the report. The information gathered by the teams is organized into chapters on training and learning, optimizing decision making, sustaining soldier performance, improving cognitive and behavioral performance, neuroscience technology opportunities, and long-term trends.
The committee was tasked to identify research and technology development opportunities and to recommend those worthy of investment in the near, medium, and far terms. High-payoff research opportunities are provided as Recommendations 1 through 15. The topics considered to be technology development opportunities were judged high priority (Table S-1), priority (Table S-2), and worthy of monitoring for possible future implementation (Table S-3). The committee considered all topics in Tables S-1 and S-2 worthy of immediate investment. Prioritization of the opportunities within the “high-priority” group and the “priority” group is dependent on the relative importance to the Army of the particular applications served by the topics.
The committee’s consensus was that in the near term the Army would benefit primarily from advances in cognitive neuroscience—education, assessment, and training, as described in Chapters 3-6. Advances in molecular and cellular neuroscience were not judged likely to have as much impact on Army operations, and the chance that advances in systems neuroscience would have an impact was quite remote. In addition, the committee considered that noninvasive, technology-based research would be the most likely to lead to discernible Army applications in the time frame
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Opportunities in Neuroscience for Future Army Applications
Summary
Emerging neuroscience opportunities have great potential to improve soldier performance and enable the development of technologies to increase the effectiveness of soldiers on the battlefield. Advances in research and investments by the broader science and medical community promise new insights for future military applications. These include traditional areas of interest to the Army, such as learning, decision making, and performance under stress, as well as new areas, such as cognitive fitness, brain–computer interfaces, and biological markers of neural states.
Advances in research-enabling technologies, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and computational neuroscience, have resulted in instrumentation and techniques that can better assess the neural basis of cognition and allow the visualization of brain processes. These advances have the potential to provide new measures of training and learning for soldiers while also shedding fresh light on the traditional approaches to behavioral science used by the Army. Most current Army neuroscience research is conducted with little regard given to its longer-term potential for military operations. The report discusses a spectrum of ongoing efforts, with an emphasis on nonmedical applications and on current research that is likely to lead to insights and opportunities for possible military application.
STUDY APPROACH
The Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology) (ASAALT) asked the National Research Council to conduct a study of neuroscience in terms of its potential to support military applications. Chapter 1 discusses the statement of task and explains how the report responds to each of the tasks.
Members of the Committee on Opportunities in Neuroscience for Future Army Applications, set up in response to the ASAALT request, had expertise not only in traditional and emerging subdisciplines of neuroscience but also in research and development (R&D), in military operations and medicine, and in training specialties such as memory and learning, assessment, decision making, prediction, and reading intentionality. The short biographies of the committee members, given in Appendix A, include their specialties.
Early briefings on the scope of Army research in neuroscience provided the basis for dividing the committee into data-gathering teams. The committee’s meetings and data-gathering activities are described in Appendix B. The various streams of information were brought together and a consensus was reached on the conclusions and recommendations of the report. The information gathered by the teams is organized into chapters on training and learning, optimizing decision making, sustaining soldier performance, improving cognitive and behavioral performance, neuroscience technology opportunities, and long-term trends.
The committee was tasked to identify research and technology development opportunities and to recommend those worthy of investment in the near, medium, and far terms. High-payoff research opportunities are provided as Recommendations 1 through 15. The topics considered to be technology development opportunities were judged high priority (Table S-1), priority (Table S-2), and worthy of monitoring for possible future implementation (Table S-3). The committee considered all topics in Tables S-1 and S-2 worthy of immediate investment. Prioritization of the opportunities within the “high-priority” group and the “priority” group is dependent on the relative importance to the Army of the particular applications served by the topics.
The committee’s consensus was that in the near term the Army would benefit primarily from advances in cognitive neuroscience—education, assessment, and training, as described in Chapters 3-6. Advances in molecular and cellular neuroscience were not judged likely to have as much impact on Army operations, and the chance that advances in systems neuroscience would have an impact was quite remote. In addition, the committee considered that noninvasive, technology-based research would be the most likely to lead to discernible Army applications in the time frame
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Opportunities in Neuroscience for Future Army Applications
TABLE S-1 High-Priority Opportunities for Army Investment in Neuroscience Technologies (Recommendation 14)
Technology Opportunity
ME
RE
Time Framea
Current Investment (L, M, or H)
Commercial
Academic
Field-deployable biomarkers of neural state
x
x
Ongoing
L
M
In-helmet EEG for brain–machine interface
x
x
Medium term
M
L
Signal processing and multimodal data fusion, including imaging modalities such as MRI, fMRI, DTI, DSI, PET, and MEG and physiological measures such as heartbeat, interbeat intervals, GSR, optical computer recognition, eye tracking, and pupilometry.
x
x
Ongoing
M
H
Soldier models and biomarkers for sleep
x
Ongoing
M
M
Vertical fMRI
x
Medium term
L
L
Fatigue prediction models
x
Medium term
L
M
Behavioral measures of fatigue
x
Medium term
M
L
Prospective biomarkers for predictive measures of soldier response to environmental stress, including hypoxic and thermal challenges
x
x
Medium term
L
L
NIRS/DOT
x
x
Medium term
L
L
Biomedical standards and models for head impact protection, including torso protection from blast
x
x
Medium term
M
M
Threat assessment augmentation
x
Medium term
M
M
fMRI paradigms of military interest
x
Ongoing
L
M
NOTE: ME, mission-enabling; RE, research-enabling; L/M/H, low, medium, or high; EEG, electroencephalography; MRI, magnetic resonance imaging; fMRI, functional magnetic resonance imaging; DTI, diffuse tensor imaging; DSI, diffusion spectrum imaging; PET, positron emission tomography; MEG, magnetoencephalography; NIRS, near-infrared spectroscopy; DOT, diffuse optical tomography; GSR, galvanic skin response.
aIn this column, “medium term” means between 5 and 10 years and “ongoing” means that results will be available within 5 years but continuing investment is recommended to stay at the forefront of the technology.
SOURCE: Committee-generated.
TABLE S-2 Priority Opportunities for Army Investment in Neuroscience Technologies (Recommendation 15)
Technology Opportunity
ME
RE
Time Framea
Current Investment (L, M, or H)
Commercial
Academic
Haptic feedback with VR
x
Medium term
H
L
Augmented reality (virtual overlay onto real world)
x
x
Medium term
H
H
In-helmet EEG for cognitive state detection and threat assessment
x
x
Medium term
L
M
Information workload management
x
Far term
L
M
Time-locked, in-magnet VR and monitoring for fMRI
x
Medium term
L
M
Immersive, in-magnet VR
x
Near term
L
M
EEG physiology
x
x
Far term
L
H
Uses of TMS for attention enhancement
x
Medium term
L
M
In-vehicle TMS deployment
x
Far term
L
L
Heartbeat variability
x
x
Near and medium term
L
H
Galvanic skin response
x
x
Near and medium term
H
L
NOTE: ME, mission-enabling; RE, research-enabling; L/M/H, low, medium, or high; VR, virtual reality; TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation.
aIn this column, “near term” means within 5 years, “medium term” means between 5 and 10 years, and “far term” means 10-20 years.
SOURCE: Committee-generated.
of the study (5-20 years); however, R&D in a few areas of neuroscience might well have enough potential that the Army should assemble a group of experts charged with monitoring progress on multiple fronts.
In addition to the 15 recommendations that respond to points in the statement of task, the committee offers two overarching recommendations, 16 and 17, which it believes are essential if the Army is to engage the opportunities in neuroscience effectively. Recommendation 16 concerns the establishment of a mechanism to monitor advances in a wide range of neuroscience disciplines in order to stay abreast of new developments and select for further pursuit those most promising for Army applications. Recommendation 17 encourages the Army to examine how to use to its advantage
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TABLE S-3 Possible Future Opportunities (Neuroscience Areas Worthy of Monitoring for Future Army Investment)
Technology Opportunity
ME
RE
Time Framea
Current Investment (L, M, or H)
Commercial
Academic
Brain–computer interface system (direct)
x
Far term
H
H
Imaging cognition
x
Far term
L
H
Neuropharmacological technology
x
Far term
M
M
Advanced fMRI data collection
x
Medium term
M
M
Averaging methodology for fMRI
x
Medium term
L
M
Brain database aggregation
x
Far term
M
M
Default mode networks
x
x
Medium term
L
H
Inverse MRI
x
Medium term
L
M
Low-field MRI
x
x
Far term
L
M
Uses of TMS for brain network inhibition
x
Far term
L
M
Safety of multiple exposures to TMS
x
Medium term
M
M
In-helmet TMS deployment
x
Far term
L
L
Connectomics
x
Far term
L
M
Atomic magnetometers
x
x
Far term
M
M
NOTE: ME, mission-enabling; RE, research-enabling; L/M/H, low, medium, or high; fMRI, functional magnetic resonance imaging; MRI, magnetic resonance imaging; and TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation.
aIn this column, “medium term” means between 5 and 10 years and “far term” means 10-20 years.
SOURCE: Committee-generated.
the insights on individual variability and the human dimension that are emerging from neuroscience.
OPPORTUNITIES IN ARMY APPLICATIONS AREAS
Opportunities exist for the Army to benefit from research in neuroscience by applying and leveraging the results of work by others (including academic research and R&D by other federal agencies and the commercial sector) or by making selective investments in Army-specific problems and applications.
Training and Learning
Neuroscience can extend and improve the Army’s traditional behavioral science approaches to both training and learning. For example, neuroscience offers new ways to assess how well current training paradigms and accepted assumptions about learning achieve their objectives. Neuropsychological indicators can help to assess how well an individual trainee has assimilated mission-critical knowledge and skills. These assessment tools also will allow the Army to assess individual variability and tailor training regimens to the individual trainee.
Recommendation 1. The Army should adjust its research capabilities to take advantage of the current and emerging advances in neuroscience to augment, evaluate, and extend its approaches to training and learning. Indicators of knowledge and skill acquisition based in neuroscience should be incorporated into the methods of testing for training success. In particular, these indicators should be employed in identifying individual variability in learning and tailoring training regimens to optimize individual learning.
The Army currently relies heavily on broad, general indicators of aptitude to predict training effectiveness and individual success rates. The importance of predicting success rates of soldiers before assigning them to given tasks increases with the cost of training for the task and with the consequences of not performing the task well. In comparison with the indicators that have been developed for assessing how well skills or knowledge have been acquired, neurological predictors of soldier performance need much R&D before they will be ready for Army applications.
Recommendation 2. The Army should investigate neuropsychological testing of candidates for a training course that is already established as a requirement to enter a high-value field. In this way the Army can determine whether an assignment-specific neuropsychological profile can be developed that has sufficiently high predictive value to use in conjunction with established criteria for the assignment. If results for this investigation are positive, the Army should investigate development of assignment-specific profiles for additional assignments.
Optimizing Decision Making
Human decision making is predictably inefficient and often suboptimal, especially when the decisions require assessments of risk and are made under pressure. Indi-
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viduals also differ in their approach to making decisions. For example, some individuals are more impulsive, while others are more deliberate and less tolerant of risk. These differences do not mean that risk-tolerant individuals are necessarily better or worse decision makers than risk-averse individuals. From an institutional (Army) point of view, different decision-making styles can suit different individuals for different tasks. That is to say, a given task may require or be better performed by an individual with a particular decision-making style. With research, neuroscience tools may become capable of discerning neural correlates for differences in decision-making style.
Recommendation 3. The Army should expand existing research in behavioral and social sciences to include neuroscience aimed at developing training and assessment tools for decision makers at all levels in the Army.
Sustaining Soldier Performance
The committee reviewed neuroscience applications related to understanding, monitoring, and preventing or treating deficits in soldier performance. These deficits may affect performance during a single extended operation or over much longer time frames. The report considered prevention interventions relevant to acute deficits noticeable immediately within the time frame of a day or days as well as longer-term deficits such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other chronic effects of brain trauma on the central nervous system (CNS).
Individual Variability of Soldiers
Conventional Army operations emphasize common levels of operational readiness and performance among individuals rather than individual variability as the basis for unit effectiveness. Nevertheless, individual soldiers do vary, not only in their baseline optimum performance (i.e., performance not degraded by sustained stressors) but also in their response to stressors that frequently lead to less-than-optimal performance (performance deficits). The Army acknowledges and uses individual variability to its advantage to achieve desired objectives for some high-value assignments that are very dependent on exceptionally high-performing individuals, such as in Special Operations.
An important lesson from neuroscience is that the ability to sustain and improve performance can be increased by identifying differences in individual soldiers and using individual variability to gauge optimum performance baselines, responses to performance-degrading stressors, and responses to countermeasures to such stressors.
Recommendation 4. To increase unit performance across the full spectrum of operations, the Army should expand its capacity to identify and make use of the individual variability of its soldiers. The Army should undertake R&D and review its training and doctrine to take best advantage of variations in the neural bases of behavior that contribute to performance. In particular, it should seek to understand—and use more widely—individual variability in (1) baseline optimal performance, (2) responses to stressors likely to degrade optimal performance, and (3) responses to countermeasures intended to overcome performance deficits or to interventions intended to enhance performance above an individual’s baseline.
Countermeasures to Environmental Stressors
The degradation of performance during sustained periods of physical or mental stress results from both peripheral system (e.g., muscle and cardiovascular) and CNS factors, which are inextricably linked. However, we lack sufficient fundamental understanding of how these factors interact and how they are influenced by the range of environmental stressors to which soldiers engaged in sustained operations are exposed. For example, physical and mental fatigue, commonly assumed to result in less-than-optimal performance, are neither well enough defined nor sufficiently well understood to provide a scientific basis for developing effective countermeasures to both the CNS and peripheral components.
Current nutritional countermeasures to fatigue are based primarily on maintaining cardiovascular and muscle function, but they fall short of addressing the important role of nutrition in brain functioning affected by fatigue. One reason for this shortfall is insufficient understanding of the CNS factors that are linked to the stress-induced degradation of performance, including those deficits commonly attributed to physical and/or mental fatigue.
Recommendation 5. The Army should increase both the pace of and its emphasis on research designed to understand the neural bases of performance degradation under stress, including but not limited to deficits commonly attributed to fatigue, and the interaction of peripheral and CNS factors in responses to stressors. It should apply the results of this research to develop and improve countermeasures such as nutritional supplements and management of sleep/wake and rest/wakefulness cycles.
Sleep is an active process that plays a fundamental role in cognitive functions such as consolidating memory and promoting synaptic plasticity. Prolonged sleep deprivation interferes with these functions and can thus adversely affect performance.
Recommendation 6. Since many abilities affected by sleep deprivation—vigilance, memory, and perceptual discrimination, for example—are increasingly important elements of soldier performance, the Army should increase its efforts to
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Opportunities in Neuroscience for Future Army Applications
collaborate with the lead laboratories involved in physiological and molecular research on sleep.
Pharmaceutical Countermeasures to Performance Degradation
Advances in neuroscience are enabling the pharmaceutical industry to develop drugs that act on novel targets to affect mood, motivation, memory, and executive function.
Recommendation 7. The Army should establish relationships with the pharmaceutical industry, the National Institutes of Health, and academic laboratories to keep abreast of advances in neuropharmacology, cellular and molecular neurobiology, and neural development and to identify new drugs that have the potential to sustain or enhance performance in military-unique circumstances. However, caution must be exercised to ensure that the benefits outweigh any unforeseen or delayed side effects.
Among the neuropharmaceuticals approved by the Food and Drug Administration for specific medical indications, a number have potential off-label uses in sustaining or optimizing performance. However, any compound, natural or synthetic, that acts on the CNS must be assumed, until proven otherwise, to affect multiple neural systems. It is therefore essential that specificity of action be demonstrated. Second, the risks of unforeseen or delayed side effects must be considered, particularly before a neuropharmaceutical is widely administered for sustaining or enhancing performance in mission-critical tasks without specific medical indication to justify its use.
Recommendation 8. Before the Army attempts to employ neuropharmaceuticals for general sustainment or enhancement of soldier performance, the Army should undertake medically informed evidence-based risk-benefit analyses, including performance and clinical measures to assess overall effects, to ensure that the expected benefits of such medication outweigh the risks of negative side effects or delayed effects.
Use of new pharmacological agents to restore function, mitigate pain or other responses to trauma, or facilitate recovery from injury or trauma will be a key application for new neuroscience technology in the near to medium term. Highly specific brain receptor targets have been identified for a number of agents, and the effectiveness of these agents will be greatly enhanced by technologies that target delivery of the pharmacological agent to a specific site. The use of targeted drug delivery to enhance performance, such as situational awareness, is technically feasible, but such uses may be proscribed by societal and ethical norms.
Recommendation 9. The Army should support research on novel mechanisms for noninvasive, targeted delivery of pharmacological agents to the brain and nervous system in the course of medical interventions to mitigate the adverse effects of physical injury to the brain or another portion of the nervous system. In the near to medium term, this research should focus on restoring a performance deficit to baseline function rather than enhancing performance beyond that baseline.
Trauma-Induced Stress Disorders, Including Response to Brain Injury
Resilience refers to the ability to successfully adapt to stressors, maintaining psychological well-being in the face of adversity. Neuroscience research has identified biomarkers for resilience, and studies have identified several attitudes and behaviors that foster psychological resilience to stress. Neuroscience has also identified risk factors associated with the development of PTSD. Evidence is increasing that stress disorders, including PTSD, are more common among soldiers than formerly believed.
The statement of task for the study specifically requested that the study not emphasize medical applications, so the committee focused on PTSD/TBI research that could be leveraged for nonmedical applications and that could lead to increased understanding of issues other than medical treatment per se. Nevertheless, the growing recognition that minimal to moderate brain traumas have chronic effects has long-term implications for future care requirements and associated costs. Neuroscience research into immediate care in combat areas, rehabilitation, new pharmaceutical treatments, and diagnostic tools can provide solutions to these problems.
Recommendation 10. The Army should support continued research on the identification of risk factors for the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This research could inform interventions that mitigate the risk for PTSD and related stress disorders, thereby lessening the performance deficits and disability resulting from these disorders.
Neuroscience research has identified risk factors associated with the development of PTSD and related stress disorders. The evidence is increasing that these stress disorders are more common among soldiers than was formerly believed.
Recommendation 11. The Army should apply the rapidly advancing understanding of the acute neuropathology of blast-induced traumatic brain injury, including the delayed neuropsychiatric effects of injuries as well. Mitigation strategies should include immediate postblast care using medication and/or other neuroprotective approaches proven
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to reduce the risk and severity of performance degradation. The Army should also continue its research in protective body armor.
Improving Cognitive and Behavioral Performance
Increased vigilance and enhanced perceptual discrimination, such as being able to recognize salient features or patterns, are inherently valuable to military missions. Research in a number of neuroscience subdisciplines, including computational neuroscience, systems neuroscience, and neuroergonomics, could lead to significant improvements in the cognitive skills of the soldiers and officers conducting Army operations.
Recommendation 12. The Army should structure its announcements of opportunities for research to draw broadly on multiple scientifically sound approaches to improving cognitive and behavioral performance, extending across the entire spectrum of neuroscience research rather than relying on a single approach. Army research opportunities should foster peer-reviewed competition and the synergism of collaboration across subdisciplines and approaches.
Neuroergonomics, which is an emerging field within the broader field of brain–machine interfaces, explores the ability of the brain to directly control systems beyond traditional human effector systems (hands and voice) by structuring the brain’s output as a signal that can be transduced into a control input to an external system (a machine, electronic system, computer, semiautonomous air or ground vehicle, etc.). The Army Research Laboratory is now exploring the potential benefits of neuroergonomics. In the Army context, the goal of neuroergonomics is to facilitate a soldier–system symbiosis that measurably outperforms conventional human–system interfaces.
Recommendation 13. The Army should continue its focus on neuroergonomic research, using measured improvements in performance over selected conventional soldier–system interfaces as the metric to evaluate the potential of neurophysiology and other neuroscience disciplines in Army-relevant R&D for improving cognitive and behavioral performance.
TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES
The committee identified and assessed cutting-edge and high-payoff technology opportunities, emphasizing their potential value for Army applications. Technologies were categorized as mission-enabling (directly enabling Army mission areas), research-enabling (supporting neuroscience-based research of high relevance to Army applications), or both.
To arrive at a set of high-priority investments, the committee assessed not only the potential value of prospective opportunities but also the time frame for developing an initial operational capability and the extent of external investment interest that the Army could leverage. Table S-1 lists the committee’s recommended high-priority opportunities for Army investments in neuroscience.
Recommendation 14. The Army should invest in the high-priority technology opportunities listed in Table S-1. The investments should initially include long-term (5 or more years) commitments to each opportunity.
Table S-2 lists “priority” technology development opportunities that the committee recommends for limited Army investment. The committee viewed these opportunities as supplementing those in Table S-1 and recommended providing limited funding for R&D to explore potential applications.
Recommendation 15. The Army should consider limited investments (2 or 3 years for the initial commitment) in the technology opportunities listed in Table S-2. Evaluation of the results for each initial investment combined with assessment of outside progress in the field should guide decisions on whether to continue the funding for additional periods.
OVERARCHING RECOMMENDATIONS
The committee found two crosscutting issues that go beyond any particular request in the statement of task but that must be addressed by the Army if the potential benefits of neuroscience are to be fully realized.
A Mechanism for Monitoring New Opportunities in Neuroscience Research and Technology
The committee could find no single place in the Army science and technology structure from which progress in neuroscience, construed broadly, is being monitored for potential application by the Army and from which coordinating guidance can be disseminated to centers of neuroscience-relevant R&D around the country. This failure to identify and leverage advances in neuroscience is the most significant barrier to implementation of the 15 recommendations and is exacerbated by the diffusion of much of the R&D taking place in neuroscience.
Most of the opportunities listed in Table S-3, as well as those in Tables S-1 and S-2, involve areas of neuroscience that the Army needs to monitor for progress. Additionally, the committee also identified four important trends in neuroscience research:
Discovering and validating biomarkers for neural states linked to soldiers’ performance outcomes.
Using individual variability to optimize unit performance.
Recognizing opportunities from the vertical integration of neuroscience levels.
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Gaining new insights into the behaviors of adversaries.
Opportunities arising from the four research trends—and the many others yet to surface—will continue to revolutionize our understanding of the embodied mind and foster practical applications in civilian, commercial, and military affairs.
Neuroscience research and applications are advancing at a lightning pace, and the Army needs a reliable way to monitor progress in areas of nonmilitary neuroscience research and technology development. Direct Army investment in these areas will probably not be warranted unless an Army-unique application of substantial value emerges. Nonetheless, the Army should stay abreast of what is happening in these areas and have mechanisms in place to leverage the research results and adapt new technology for Army applications.
Recommendation 16. The Army should establish a group consisting of recognized leaders in neuroscience research in both the academic and private sectors to track progress in nonmilitary neuroscience R&D that could be relevant to Army applications. To ensure that the monitoring group remains sensitive to and abreast of Army needs, the membership should also include Army civilians and soldiers whose backgrounds and interests would suit them for meaningful participation in the group’s deliberations.
Individual Variability as a Future Force Multiplier
A number of the recommendations reflect a common theme that may challenge traditional Army approaches but that offers great potential for increasing Army capabilities. Recommendations 2 (on training), 3 (on decision making), and 4 (on soldier stress response) all point to a larger theme that is emerging from current neuroscience research: Individual differences in behavior, cognition, and performance of skilled tasks are as deeply rooted in the neural structure of individuals as differences in strength, stamina, height, or perceptual acuity are rooted in their physiology. This common theme, as it pertains to opportunities for the Army to apply neuroscience, is explicitly explored in Chapter 8 of the report as a significant long-term research trend: using individual variability to optimize unit performance.
Neuroscience is establishing the role that neural structures play in the individual variability observed in cognition, memory, learning behaviors, resilience to stressors, and decision-making strategies and styles. Individual differences among soldiers have consequences for many Army applications and can influence operational readiness and the ability of Army units to perform assigned tasks optimally. Individual variability is in many ways at odds with the conventional approach of training soldiers to be interchangeable components of a unit.
Recommendation 17. Using insights from neuroscience on the sources and characteristics of individual variability, the Army should consider how to take advantage of the variability rather than ignoring it or attempting to eliminate it from a soldier’s behavior patterns in performing assigned tasks. The goal should be to seek ways to use individual variability to improve unit readiness and performance.
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