Small-team Connection and Operational Performance Enhancement (SCOPE) is a 12-min video developed by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Building on the success of WRAIR’s iCOVER and Warrior Mindset training videos, SCOPE highlights a variety of mental skills to promote resilience, cohesion, and management of acute stress in a combat environment. Skills include responding to a team member experiencing an acute stress reaction while under drone attack, supporting unit cohesion by integrating newcomers into the team, sustaining performance by engaging in good sleep health, strengthening team connection through active constructive responding, managing anxiety through worry postponement, preventing a spiral of negative thoughts through 5-5-5, and encouraging positive experiences through active appreciation. By using realistic portrayals of service members under stress, this video demonstrates how mental skills can enhance the operational resilience of teams.

Transcript

Brain, Behavior, & Mind is a series of global forums featuring distinguished scientists, clinicians, and leaders whose work spans neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, and public health. Each event explores new insights in our understanding of health and illness.

Brain, Behavior, & Mind events are sponsored by the CSTS, in collaboration with USU’s Department of Psychiatry, Neuroscience Program, Department of Family Medicine, Center for Deployment Psychology, and Brain and Behavior Hub.

On 29 May, friends and colleagues honored the career of Dr. Robert J. Ursano, former Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress at Uniformed Services University, in a retirement festschrift. The festschrift featured a distinguished group of speakers from around the world who reflected on Dr. Ursano's influence on their research and science.

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Brain, Behavior, & Mind, sponsored by the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress (CSTS) at the Uniformed Services University (USU), is a series of global forums featuring distinguished scientists, clinicians, and leaders whose work spans neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, and public health. Each event explores new insights in our understanding of health and illness by integrating knowledge from genes to community and from the research bench to bedside care. Our aim is to advance the science and clinical care needed for the diverse populations of the U.S. Department of War and the Nation who face complex and stressful environments.

Research on suicide risk among the U.S. Army’s elite special operations forces (SOF) has been extremely limited, but CSTS's STARRS team aims to bridge that knowledge gap with this new article in JAMA Network Open. CSTS Assistant Scientific Director, Dr. James A. Naifeh, and colleagues examine suicidal behaviors among SOF operators and SOF support personnel during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.