We have on-going research projects to further refine our understanding of MMFT’s benefits in different military populations. 

MMFT in U.S. Army Infantry Units before Deployment to Combat

This on-going resilience study will help clarify which components of MMFT are most effective for building stress resilience.  The STRONG (Schofield Barracks Training and Research On Neurobehavioral Growth) study is sponsored by the U.S. Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program.  This study began in April 2010, with participants receiving training throughout the summer of 2010.   It includes 240 soldiers divided into six groups:  Four groups have received variations of MMFT, one control group received another resilience training based on the tenets of positive psychology, and one control group received no training.  The study will be looking at the effects of the training as indexed by cognitive tasks, self-report measures, and brain wave and peripheral physiology measures.  Researchers have already collected data at three time points: before and after the training, and again in December 2010, to measure the training’s enduring effects.

This study, funded by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command, is being conducted from 2009-2013 in collaboration with principal investigator Dr. Amishi Jha at the University of Miami.

Neural Mechanisms of Mental Skills Resilience, in Conjunction with Infantry Immersive Training, in U.S. Marines

In early 2011, we will start research in collaboration with Dr. Chris Johnson of the Naval Health Research Center’s Warfighter Performance department.  Earlier phases of Johnson’s research examined the specific mechanisms of resilience that can be enhanced through the Marine Corps’ pre-deployment stress inoculation training at the Infantry ImmersiveTrainer (IIT), a virtual environment facility at Camp Pendleton for training small units in distributed operations doctrine.  Now, we are collaborating with Johnson in the study’s second phase, to test the effects of complementing existing stress inoculation training at the IIT with mind fitness training.  This project will include neurocognitive behavioral testing; functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); blood biomarkers; a variety of self-report measures; and objective measures of small group performance during squad counterinsurgency drills.