Traumatic Brain Injury in Automobile Accidents – Determining Mechanical and Chemical Properties of Brain

The overall goal of this project is to help Honda create safer cars for occupants and pedestrians during automobile accidents. Many people involved in automobile accidents die hours or days after the accident. One of the main reasons for this delayed death is cerebral edema (brain swelling) following an accident. Current automobile safety research and engineering currently cannot accurately predict cerebral edema after a car accident, and therefore deaths and neurological dysfunctions following these cases of cerebral edema are not accurately taken into account during the design of automobile safety systems. Therefore, the goal of the student will be to assist in determining real-life mechanical and chemical properties of the brain so that these parameters can be input into finite element computational simulations of brain swelling following car accidents. More specifically, the student will aid in prototyping and refining a device to measure the fixed-charge density of brain, a major parameter responsible for causing cerebral edema. The student will also aid in measuring the fixed-charge density of brain samples so that our computational simulations of brain swelling following car accidents can run more accurately and assist Honda’s research and development to create safer cars in the future.