Rapid technological advancements have lead to increasingly complex systems that combine both traditional and novel information-rich, multi-sensory displays; unchecked, there is the potential to overwhelm system operators. In particular, Soldiers operate within highly dynamic environments and must contend with challenging conditions including fatigue, emotional and physical stress, weather, darkness, and dust. System designs must not only be able to function reliably under these wide ranging conditions, but they must also function with operators of differing capabilities. One approach to enabling such systems design is to integrate our fundamental understanding of human behavior developed through neuroscience techniques into such designs. However, this is not a trivial undertaking. We seek to develop a framework for the translation of basic neuroscience to battlefield application. This talk will discuss critical aspects of translational work, such as understanding the function of the nervous system within dynamic real-world settings, and the transition from neuroscience to system development. It is in the context of these challenges that we are developing a framework to understand the complex interactions among human, task, and environment that are critical to the translation of multi-sensory theory to multimodal battlefield applications. Current efforts toward this goal will be discussed, including a description of current issues in both research and application domains, as well as interests for the future.