The correlation between the brain and body is an intricate, precise system that is overlooked by most of us in day-to-day life. However, the study of this system — including both its resilience and its limitations — provides a necessary look into how humans, at their core, function. Two researchers in the Center for Lower Extremity Ambulatory Research (CLEAR) have devoted their careers to this work and are using their findings to make the world a safer place.

CLEAR Director Chris Connaboy, PhD, and Shawn Flanagan, PhD, MPH, associate professor in the Scholl College and director of the Human Performance Laboratory, also a member of CLEAR, joined the RFU community in 2022 and 2023, respectively. They first met as faculty members at the University of Pittsburgh.

Their current research venture revolves around the armed forces’ warfighter readiness, resilience and injury risk — a subject that intrigued Dr. Connaboy, who before pursuing an academic career, served as an infantry soldier in the Black Watch, Royal Highland Regiment in the UK Armed Forces.

The project culminated in more than one lecture, the first of which, “Understanding Motor Control and Coordination Implications in Load Carriage Performance: Comparing Warfighter Injury Risk Between Men and Women,” took place at the 2023 National Strength and Conditioning Association Tactical Annual Training in Las Vegas. Load carriage, as described by Dr. Connaboy, “is a fundamental task that all soldiers, all warfighters, do — and it is one of the leading causes of injury. So we need to know how to train for it better and how to do it better.”

“I need to understand how we can shake the tree a little bit in order to make things make sense and make them more optimal.”

Women began serving in direct ground combat roles in 2016, a policy change that begged a question: How can science help women warfighters achieve their full potential?

“All the training and most of the equipment has been designed for and by, typically, men. So we know how to optimize the training of men to meet these task demands. But we don’t truly understand how we do that for women,” Dr. Connaboy said. “So a lot of my work has been about, ‘How do we better understand what the specific needs of the women warfighters are? How do we optimize the training, such that they can meet those demands?’

“And the main premise of that (lecture) was, ‘If you aren’t given the right equipment or the opportunity to train in a way that benefits you specifically and the constraints that you have on your system, then you’re not likely to be as successful as you could be.’”

A high density electroencephalogram (EEG) cap is used by the CLEAR Lab to record electrical activity in the brain.

Working backward from this point, Dr. Connaboy began to unravel more of this status quo. Women are not smaller versions of men, he said. Anatomically and hormonally speaking, there is a vast difference between male and female warfighters, “so presenting them with the exact same training stimulus isn’t going to enable them to achieve as much as they could do.”

Thinking back to his infantry soldier days, Dr. Connaboy recalls elements of his own training that left him with more questions than answers; policies that remained intact because, as he was told, “We’ve always done it this way.”

“That for me is never good enough,” Dr. Connaboy said. “I need to understand how we can shake the tree a little bit in order to make things make sense and make them more optimal.”

Dr. Connaboy and Dr. Flanagan continue to make sense of things by being ever-ready to take on new opportunities, as well as ask research questions that are “not necessarily directly related to the science that we do,” Dr. Connaboy admitted. “We both like working in these dynamic team research environments, and so we’ve done a lot of research that’s not on the cusp of our knowledge, but working with some great partners. We’ve worked across what seems like quite disparate domains.”

“We’re both interested in discontinuities, big gaps and finding novel ways to work on those gaps.”

To that end, the topics of their work fluctuates, from cognitive-resilience research based on Dr. Connaboy’s work with NASA, to a proteomics experiment that would find biomarkers in urine that speak to changes in trabecular bone properties.

“And again, neither of us are proteomics scientists, but we’re both interested in discontinuities, big gaps and finding novel ways to work on those gaps,” Dr. Flanagan said. “And we’re good at building collaborations. We’re both passionate about rigorous, high-quality, experimental science. I think if we put those things together, we can tackle problems across a lot of different domains.”

The two investigators co-chaired the session “Adopting a Systems Health Approach to Enhance Warfighter Readiness and Resilience” at the International Congress on Soldiers Physical Performance in London. The talk was offered in conjunction with the Valkyrie Project, which “provides American female service members with the tools they need for success across the full spectrum of military service,” and promotes better understanding and recognition of women within the systems of the Department of Defense (DOD). The lecture was “extremely well received,” Dr. Connaboy said. It reiterated that if the differences between men and women are not properly recognized, then there will always be a deficit that will cause harm.

Forging Partnerships

Dr. Flanagan recently received a one-year, $163,225 grant from Mantel Technologies for the research study “Radical Improvements in Personnel Performance through Enhanced Development (RIPPED).” The DOD-focused engineering firm was searching for academic partners and they were familiar with the duo’s work at the University of Pittsburgh.

“We’re both passionate about research that advances understanding and that benefits humans,” Dr. Flanagan said.

Dr. Flanagan described the Mantel project as a good example of a basic translational applied hybrid approach: a direct, phase-two small business innovation research program and an SBIR grant with Mantel Technologies in the lead engineering role and serving as the lead scientific contributor.

“We’re both passionate about research that advances understanding and that benefits humans.”

“The goal of that project was to develop non-invasive brain stimulation technologies that can improve cognitive function in pilots,” Dr. Flanagan said. “The initial phase of the proposal focused on optimizing the non-invasive brain stimulation technique, which involved testing many different parameters and endpoints, and better understanding its mechanisms of action. The second phase of the study took that information and incorporated it into a fieldable device that Mantel Technologies designed for pilots to use.”

Dr. Connaboy and Dr. Flanagan hope to establish a foothold and increase RFU brand recognition among the Department of Defense community, especially given the university’s proximity to Naval Station Great Lakes and the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center.

“Going forward, we’re trying to bring in some large DOD funding,” Dr. Connaboy said. “We’re exploring a woman warfighter’s initiative, trying to bring in some large-scale funds to look at, specifically, women warfighters in the Navy and how we can mitigate the injuries that they’re seeing while going through recruit training and selection.”

Dr. Shawn Flanagan (left) and Dr. Chris Connaboy in the CLEAR Lab.

Pending a funding application, the investigators are looking to create a flexible and portable modular laboratory, allowing them to bring research equipment to the people they serve, and to expand their work in support of additional populations.

“We have an opportunity to build something truly special with the VA and with the Navy — collaboratively — to help solve problems and advance knowledge for veteran populations,” Dr. Flanagan said. “We have an opportunity to make an impact in advancing the health and performance of women warfighters and women generally. That’s something that will likely continue and expand. At RFU, there will be a ton of opportunities to develop cross-cutting collaborations that leverage what we can do.”

Margaret Smith is a Chicago-based freelance editor and writer whose work largely focuses on current sociopolitical happenings.