ICDS News

Bundles of fiber called axonal tracts in the brain experience strain when injured. Credit: Kraft Lab.

Reuben Kraft’s research team utilize ICDS resources to better understand traumatic brain injuries

Editor’s Note: A version of this article was originally published on Penn State News.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — According to Reuben Kraft, professor of mechanical engineering at the Penn State College of Engineering, when the human brain experiences an injury, it can be difficult to diagnose a concussion due to the trauma being inside of the skull and can’t be accurately analyzed or assessed.

Kraft, who is a Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS) co-hire, and his research team are using ICDS resources to process data and predict injury in the human brain. This particular research has the potential to benefit athletes and military personnel who experience repetitive trauma to the head.

The brain is a heavily networked system of axonal fiber track that transmit information between the regions of the brain. The brain allows for multiple communication pathways, which can act as a detour if one fiber track is ruptured. According to Kraft, even with a ruptured track, the brain can still function, it just may process information slower than usual.

Kraft’s team developed the “Brain Simulation Research Platform,” which is a computational model that allows researchers to assess injury location, predict how the network was affected and how that might impact functional behaviors. The team aims to continue working on the platform and eventually test it clinically.

The researchers collaborated with football players at Western Carolina University to collect data from customized mouthguard sensors. These mouthguard sensors measured the force transmission to the head, captured data from rotational and translational movements as well as monitoring of head motion where there is no direct head impact. The work was funded by The Chuck Noll Foundation.

The football players in this study took a baseline functional test to assess verbal and working memory and reaction time. Players who had sustained a big impact, they were asked to repeat the test to measure any changes in their cognitive function.

A big impact would be considered when the brain tissues was estimated to stretch 20% or more.

“We couldn’t do this work without the right tools,” Kraft said. “The ICDS facilities creates a community of users — faculty, students and staff — who are gaining more information and knowledge and funneling that knowledge into the work. This process really helps us focus on the question of ‘why?’, which makes for more in-depth research and better answers.”

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