(USA Today) -- The Army will outfit a brigade of soldiers in Afghanistan in the next few weeks with gauges worn on their bodies that can alert medics to an explosion's severity - proof of possible brain injury.

It is the beginning of an effort over the next several months to wire up soldiers and vehicles with sensors, black boxes and digital cameras.

The data may shed light on how blast exposures damage the brain, even when a soldier appears only dazed, researchers say. An estimated 300,000 troops have suffered mild brain injuries, mostly from blast, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"(This) is the beginning of a process...that's going to lead us to collecting the data researchers need to untie this Gordian knot," says Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army vice chief of staff.

Sensors will measure blast effects from buried bombs known as improvised explosive devices that have killed nearly 3,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and wounded about 30,000. The newest sensor, developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)for nearly $1 million, is about the size of the time piece on a wristwatch and weighs less than an ounce.  

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