In an effort to better understand and prevent concussions, bioengineers and clinicians at Stanford have turned athletic fields into laboratories to tackle fundamental questions about brain injuries. A story recently published in Stanford Magazine offers a detailed look at the ongoing research involving high-tech, data-gathering mouth guards worn by players during games to record the impact of hits and advanced imaging studies to measure subtle changes on athletes’ brain scans.
Kristin Sainani writes:
Unfortunately, after years of inattention, the science of concussions remains in its infancy. “We don’t even know what a concussion is at a basic, biological level,” says Mona Hicks, who oversaw traumatic brain injury research at the National Institutes of Health for nine years and is now chief scientific officer at One Mind, a nonprofit focused on brain disease. This scientific void creates uncertainty when it comes to addressing such controversies as how long to hold concussed athletes out of play, whether to ban heading in youth soccer and how much to change the game of football.
David Camarillo, assistant professor of bioengineering and a former football player at Princeton University, is studying the physics of such hits. His lab has outfitted most of Shaw’s team with high-tech, data-gathering mouth guards that the players wear during games. Seattle-based X2Biosystems had developed prototypes for a commercial product; Camarillo’s group customized the design for research use. The devices measure how violently a player’s head gets tossed around during collisions, falls and other impacts.
“My long-term goal is to prevent concussions,” Camarillo says. “The first step is to understand what causes them.”
Previously: Forces at work in concussions more complicated than previously thought, new Stanford study reveals, Stanford undergrad studies cellular effects of concussions, Developing a computer model to better diagnose brain damage, concussions and Stanford researchers working to combat concussions in football
Photo by West Point – The U.S. Military Academy