Electromechanical Interactions in Blast-Induced Traumatic Brain Injury

This project will investigate the new kinds of electromechanical interactions and their role in blast-induced traumatic brain injury (TBI)—including fundamental physics, simulation, experiments, neurological impacts, diagnosis and clinical guidance, and prevention/mitigation. The motivation for this project is the recent discovery by the PIs of a potential new electromechanical mechanism for blast TBI: because of piezoelectric properties of bone, a blast wave impacting bone such as the skull can generate large short-range electric fields, whose in-brain magnitudes are estimated to be comparable to fields with known neurological effects. We propose to answer the key questions raised by this possibility, using new measurements of the properties of human cranial bone and electromechanical full-head blast-wave simulations to determine the spatiotemporal distribution of blast-induced electromagnetic pulses. This information will be used to improve blast-survivability of soldiers in the field, by updating injury models, evaluating different mitigation strategies (e.g. helmet designs), and developing diagnostic tools for technology transition to Army/industry partners.