New Research - CECD Holds Discussions to Initiate Brain Injury Studies

College Park, MD, February 20, 2009

CECD faculty in collaboration with a team from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore have begun discussions to initate a brain injury study, where faculty from two different areas of expertise - engineering and medical sciences - would work together to defeat warfighter brain injury.

Brain trauma is the signature injury of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, resulting in death or severe permanent brain injury to several thousand warfighters and long-term neuropsychologic problems associated with mild traumatic brain injury to many thousand additional troops. The most common cause of these catastrophic injuries is exposure to blasts, particularly those associated with improvised explosive devices. While the biomechanics and biochemical basis of traumatic brain injury following civilian accidents are relatively well known, little is known about the physical forces that act directly on the brain or through helmets and body armor during explosions or the chain of events that result in these forces causing the death or dysfunction of neurons in the brain and subsequent neurologic and psychological impairment.

The goal of the study is to:

• Utilize unique combination of expertise in explosive energetics, mechanical sciences, and the neuroscience and treatment of head trauma to define the physical basis of blast-induced traumatic brain injury (bTBI)
• Develop brain-protective body armor based on this knowledge
• Collaborate on bold, innovative experiments that will both improve the diagnosis of bTBI with advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques and will also help test potentially neuroprotective drugs that could be translated into military medicine.

The CECD\UMSM team members include  Dr. DK Anand,   Dr. Bala Balachandran,  Dr. James Short,  Dr. William Fourney,   Dr. Gary M. Fiskum, and Dr. Rao Gullapalli.
 
Several meetings have already been held in College Park to discuss team capabilities and to outline two or three potential projects in the near future.