Football isn’t just a contact sport — it’s a dangerous game of massive bodies colliding into one another. And while it may seem obvious that this sport can do extraordinary damage to brains and bodies, it’s taken far too long for the NFL, the medical community, and football fans to fully reckon with this. Doctors […]
Philip Bayly has spent years trying to figure out the best way to jiggle a brain. The mechanical engineer is part of a team of researchers at Washington University studying how a jolt to the head can shake the brain — the kind of injury a football player suffers when crashing into an opponent. Using […]
Traumatic brain injury and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) have become common in athletes who suffer repeated blows to the head. Most recently, former New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski revealed that he had sustained about 20 concussions during his nine-year career in the National Football League. Now, a team of researchers nationwide, led by Philip […]
Human bodies have some built-in systems to care for themselves. The cells that line our lungs, nose, brain and reproductive system have cilia, which are tiny, hair-like structures designed to sweep out fluids, cells and microbes to stay healthy. But the mechanisms behind their motion are not well understood. The team of researchers (clockwise, from […]
From NPR’s Morning Edition… It was a question about soccer that got Philip Bayly interested in brain injuries. Bayly, a mechanical engineer at Washington University in St. Louis, was approached by several doctors who wanted advice about some young soccer players they were treating. “They said, ‘Well, we’ve got some kids who have concussions and […]
From Physics online… A numerical study suggests that head impacts primarily induce a few low-frequency, damped modes of vibration in brain tissue, a finding that could inform the design of sports helmets. Strike a bell or a drum and its sound will be dominated by a few vibrational patterns (“modes”), each of which has a […]
Examining brain folds — as unique to an individual as fingerprints — could hold key to new diagnostic tools From the WashU Newsroom… During the third trimester, a baby’s brain undergoes rapid development in utero. The cerebral cortex dramatically expands its surface area and begins to fold. Previous work suggests that this quick and very vital […]
