Construct Validation of a Remote Brain Health Assessment Battery to Evaluate Vocational Aptitude and Factors Associated With Cognitive Resilience in the Military: Observational Trial.

Overview

Authors: Mouna Attarha¹, Melissa Polusny², Melissa Fisher², Karrie Fitzpatrick², Wendy Schlinsog², Cathy Chen², Sophia Vinogradov²

ORCID iDs: Mouna Attarha, Melissa Polusny, Melissa Fisher, Karrie Fitzpatrick, Wendy Schlinsog, Cathy Chen, Sophia Vinogradov

Posit Science Corporation San Francisco, CA United States
Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences University of Minnesota Medical School Minneapolis, MN United States

Institutions: Posit Science (United States) (United States); University of Minnesota (United States)

Journal: JMIR formative research, volume 10, article e99490

Dates: received 26 April 2026; accepted 12 June 2026; published online 6 July 2026

Type: Research article · Language: English

License: CC BY

Identifiers: DOI 10.2196/99490 · PMID 42405657 · PMCID PMC13386120 · OpenAlex W7167474263

Open access: gold, a free copy (OpenAlex)

Status: code on request

Categories: behavior only (modality), human (organism)

Methods: Statistics

Keywords: military eligibility, vocational aptitude, cognitive resilience, ARMOR study, Advancing Research on Mechanisms of Resilience, National Guard, military recruits, brain health assessment, cognitive assessment, assessment scalability

MeSH: Aptitude*, Cognition*, Military Personnel*, Neuropsychological Tests*, Psychometrics*, Resilience, Psychological*, Adult, Humans, Male, Reproducibility of Results (* major topic)

Topic: Traumatic Brain Injury Research (Epidemiology, Medicine), according to OpenAlex

Funding: NCCIH NIH HHS (UH3 AT009651); Office of Naval Research (N00014-21-1-2463)

Citations: not cited yet (Europe PMC); 38 references in the paper

Abstract

Background: Vocational aptitude and cognitive resilience predict military success, yet current assessments rely on resource-intensive, in-person testing that limits scalability. A brief, self-administered, remotely deployable computerized battery offers a practical solution for large-scale screening and monitoring.

Objective: This study aims to deploy a set of computerized assessments among National Guard recruits and assess their preliminary construct validity against a standardized aptitude measure and a research-based proxy for cognitive resilience.

Methods: In this observational study, 267 enlisted service members from the Minnesota Army National Guard participated in 2 complementary ethics-approved observational trials: Office of Naval Research Neuropsychometrics and Advancing Research on Mechanisms of Resilience (ARMOR). National Guard soldiers in ARMOR completed the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT), Penn Computerized Neurocognitive Battery (Penn CNB), and a 20-minute computerized brain health assessment battery (BrainHQ) at separate time points over the course of their military careers. BrainHQ assessments consisted of adaptive psychophysical tasks measuring the speed and accuracy of visual and auditory information processing. The battery assessed decision-making speed, emotion-processing speed, selective attention under speeded conditions, working memory capacity for speeded visual elements, verbal memory and learning of speeded speech, and problem-solving speed. The Penn CNB included nonspeeded neuropsychological assessments of executive function, verbal memory, social cognition, and reasoning. Linear regression evaluated the association between BrainHQ performance and AFQT percentiles, and partial correlations assessed associations between conceptually related BrainHQ and Penn CNB subtests.

Results: Participants were predominantly young (mean age 19.1 years) and male (178/267, 66.7%). BrainHQ performance was significantly associated with enlistment eligibility and vocational aptitude, as measured by the AFQT (P<.001), after controlling for age and education. The overall model explained 24.4% of the variance in AFQT percentiles (adjusted R2=0.227). The BrainHQ assessment composite was the strongest predictor, uniquely accounting for 19.2% of the variance and supporting the construct validity of aptitude. These associations persisted despite the temporal separation between assessment time points. Quartile analyses showed graded relationships between BrainHQ performance and AFQT eligibility thresholds, with higher BrainHQ performance associated with progressively greater probabilities of meeting higher AFQT benchmarks. Preplanned partial correlations between BrainHQ subtests and standardized neurocognitive measures from the Penn CNB showed significant positive associations (r=0.17-0.25; all P<.001 to .02) with cognitive domains typically associated with cognitive resilience.

Conclusions: A brief, self-administered, and scalable brain health battery demonstrates associations with military vocational aptitude and with neurocognitive domains associated with cognitive resilience. Future studies should evaluate whether integrating these assessments into current practices predicts success in Basic Combat Training, guides military progression, and supports long-term cognitive screening and monitoring across the Armed Forces.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Code

The paper says that its authors' code is available on request: it was not published with the paper, so there is nothing to verify.

The paper's code and data availability statement is in the Data section.

Tracing map

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Data

No dataset and no data link were found in the paper.

Data Availability

The data are not publicly available because of security restrictions. Datasets are available from MP upon reasonable request and subject to approval by the University of Minnesota or the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Analysis scripts are available from MA upon reasonable request.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Versions

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Version 1, 27 September 2026: the first record

Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, pages, dates, 7 authors, 10 keywords, 10 MeSH terms, 2 funders, 34 references.

Cite

This paper

Attarha, M., Polusny, M., Fisher, M., Fitzpatrick, K., Schlinsog, W., Chen, C., & Vinogradov, S. (2026). Construct Validation of a Remote Brain Health Assessment Battery to Evaluate Vocational Aptitude and Factors Associated With Cognitive Resilience in the Military: Observational Trial. JMIR formative research, 10, e99490. https://doi.org/10.2196/99490

BibTeX

@article{attarha2026construct, author = {Attarha, Mouna and Polusny, Melissa and Fisher, Melissa and Fitzpatrick, Karrie and Schlinsog, Wendy and Chen, Cathy and Vinogradov, Sophia}, title = {{Construct Validation of a Remote Brain Health Assessment Battery to Evaluate Vocational Aptitude and Factors Associated With Cognitive Resilience in the Military: Observational Trial}}, journal = {JMIR formative research}, year = {2026}, month = jul, volume = {10}, pages = {e99490}, publisher = {JMIR Publications Inc.}, issn = {2561-326X}, doi = {10.2196/99490}, url = {https://doi.org/10.2196/99490}, pmid = {42405657}, pmcid = {PMC13386120} }

RIS

TY - JOUR AU - Attarha, Mouna AU - Polusny, Melissa AU - Fisher, Melissa AU - Fitzpatrick, Karrie AU - Schlinsog, Wendy AU - Chen, Cathy AU - Vinogradov, Sophia TI - Construct Validation of a Remote Brain Health Assessment Battery to Evaluate Vocational Aptitude and Factors Associated With Cognitive Resilience in the Military: Observational Trial T2 - JMIR formative research J2 - JMIR Form Res PY - 2026 DA - 2026/07/06 VL - 10 SP - e99490 SN - 2561-326X PB - JMIR Publications Inc. DO - 10.2196/99490 UR - https://doi.org/10.2196/99490 LA - en ER -

CSL-JSON

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