KEY PUBLICATIONS

Military deployment can have profound effects on physical and mental health. Few studies have examined whether interventions prior to deployment can improve mechanisms underlying resilience. Mindfulness-based techniques have been shown to aid recovery from stress and may affect brain-behavior relationships prior to deployment. The authors examined the effect of mindfulness training on resilience mechanisms in active-duty Marines preparing for deployment.

How do you feel? In order to answer this question, your interoceptive system integrates sensory information regarding the homeostatic state of your body and feeds it forward to other higher-order brain regions to form a snapshot of how you feel. We've shown that elite perfomers, like SEALs and adventure racers process this type of interoceptive information differently, and that this is what allow them to perform so well under extreme stress. 

The ability to efficiently process salient information and integrate it with the current moment is invaluable to individuals that stive toward ultimate performance in extreme environments. In this article, we explore how elite adventure racers process emotional information differently than normal individuals and how those neural differences allow them to perform when it matters the most. 

Dr. Thom won SAIC's "Best Publication" Award for this work. He received the award from retired Chief of Staff and 4-star General, John Jumper.

Because of the important role that emotions play in our daily lives, scientists spend a lot of time evaluating the way we process emotional information. For the most part, pictures of emotional faces or emotionally evocative scenes are used to manipulate emotional systems in the brain. In this manuscript, we explore how these two methods compare on a neurobiological level.