Developing an Injury Threshold for Human Brain Concussion using IoT

The Bioengineering Department at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, was faced with the challenge of developing a complete understanding of injury mechanisms for mild traumatic brain injury or concussions. The goal was to prevent or mitigate injury occurrence. Traumatic brain injuries constitute a significant portion of injury resulting from vehicle crash and sports collisions. The department aimed to develop strategies to prevent and mitigate these injuries, which can reduce the heavy emotional, economic, and social price of these injuries for future products. The department had previously developed head injury protection standards based on tolerance curves derived from animal concussion test acceleration results and cadaveric skull fractures. However, these standards could not account for the complex motion of the brain within a deformable skull, neglecting the contribution of angular head acceleration to injury causation and the directional sensitivity of the head.

The customer in this case study is the Bioengineering Department at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. This department houses one of the largest continuously active biomedical research programs in the United States. For over 70 years, faculty and researchers have made significant biomedical advances through close collaboration between the Department and WSU’s School of Medicine. The Department’s Bioengineering Center is a leading laboratory focused on research into impact trauma, low back pain, and sports injury biomechanics. Current projects include vehicle side and rear impact crashworthiness analysis, head injury modeling, and lower extremity injury simulation.