The Department of Defense is in the process of distributing $300 million on research for traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. To put the amount in perspective, it is the most spent in one year on medical research since a $210 million breast cancer study in 1993. The distributions will fund 171 research projects. Gregory O’Shanick, national medical director for the Brain Injury Association of America, said the funding initiative is “without a doubt an all-time high” in spending by the government on traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. As is expected, civilian victims will benefit directly from the military studies. By contrast, the National Institutes of Health, the world’s largest government sponsor of medical research with an annual budget of $28 billion, spends about $80 million per year on TBI research, according to the NIH. “It is huge,” said Ross Bullock, director of neurotrauma at the University of Miami School of Medicine and lead investigator in a Pentagon-funded study of a drug designed to improve oxygen flow to damaged brain cells. “It is the just the most enormous thing that has happened in traumatic brain injury research.” According to Navy Capt. E. Melissa Kaime, head of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs office the new research will focus considerable attention on TBI and studies are expected to complete between 18 months and 5 years. She further says that the military funding will go toward evaluating up to 20 different medications for TBI and studying ways of regenerating damaged brain cells. Half of the $300 million in Pentagon funds have been distributed, and all will be paid out by Sept. 30, Kaime said.