Combat military and civilian law enforcement personnel may be exposed to repetitive low-intensity blast events during training and operations. Persons who use explosives to gain entry (i.e., breach) into buildings are known as “breachers” or dynamic entry personnel. Breachers operate under the guidance of established safety protocols, but despite these precautions, breachers who are exposed to low-level blast throughout their careers frequently report performance deficits and symptoms to healthcare providers. Although little is known about the etiology linking blast exposure to clinical symptoms in humans, animal studies demonstrate network-level changes in brain function, alterations in brain morphology, vascular and inflammatory changes, hearing loss, and even alterations in gene expression after repeated blast exposure. To explore whether similar effects occur in humans, we collected a comprehensive data battery from 20 experienced breachers exposed to blast throughout their careers and 14 military and law enforcement controls. This battery included neuropsychological assessments, blood biomarkers, and magnetic resonance imaging measures, including cortical thickness, diffusion tensor imaging of white matter, functional connectivity, and perfusion. To better understand the relationship between repetitive low-level blast exposure and behavioral and imaging differences in humans, we analyzed the data using similarity-driven multi-view linear reconstruction (SiMLR). SiMLR is specifically designed for multiple modality statistical integration using dimensionality-reduction techniques for studies with high-dimensional, yet sparse, data (i.e., low number of subjects and many data per subject). We identify significant group effects in these data spanning brain structure, function, and blood biomarkers.

中文翻译：

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功能性和结构性神经影像与职业破坏者中重复的低水平爆炸暴露相关。

战斗军事和文职执法人员在训练和行动期间可能会接触到重复的低强度爆炸事件。使用爆炸物进入（即突破）建筑物的人员被称为“破坏者”或动态进入人员。违规者在既定安全协议的指导下运作，但尽管有这些预防措施，在整个职业生涯中暴露于低水平爆炸的违规者经常向医疗保健提供者报告表现缺陷和症状。尽管人们对爆炸暴露与人类临床症状之间的病因学知之甚少，但动物研究表明，在反复爆炸暴露后，大脑功能、大脑形态学改变、血管和炎症变化、听力损失，甚至基因表达发生了网络级变化. 为了探索类似的影响是否会发生在人类身上，我们收集了 20 名在其职业生涯中暴露于爆炸的经验丰富的破坏者以及 14 名军事和执法控制人员的综合数据组。该电池组包括神经心理学评估、血液生物标志物和磁共振成像测量，包括皮质厚度、白质扩散张量成像、功能连接和灌注。为了更好地理解重复低水平爆炸暴露与人类行为和成像差异之间的关系，我们使用相似性驱动的多视图线性重建 (SiMLR) 分析了数据。SiMLR 专为使用降维技术的多模态统计集成而设计，用于研究高维但稀疏的数据（即，受试者数量少，每个受试者的数据很多）。我们在这些跨越大脑结构、功能和血液生物标志物的数据中确定了显着的群体效应。