Abstract: Many risk assessment models have been developed to predict traumatic brain injury (TBI) using the kinematic response of the head following a blunt or inertial impact. An effective risk model can have a substantial influence on how we predict, diagnose, and prevent brain injury in soldiers and athletes – from assessing head impact severity determined from wearable sensors, to evaluating the efficacy of helmets. A kinematic-based metric relates the severity of a head impact to a mathematical function of the velocity and/or acceleration components of translational and/or rotational head motion. Currently, no single metric is accepted for a diverse range of head impact conditions, and there is continued debate on what metrics are most suitable for predicting TBI in sports and automotive impacts. This presentation is a comprehensive investigation on the relationship between head kinematics and brain deformation with a focus on diffuse-based TBI risk assessment. Topics discussed in this seminar include brain biomechanics, TBI injury criteria, linear vs rotational head motion, and multiple modeling approaches used to investigate these questions.
Bio: Dr. Panzer is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Virginia, and is head of computational research at the Center for Applied Biomechanics since 2012. He graduated from Duke University in North Carolina with a PhD in Biomedical Engineering, and from the University of Waterloo in Ontario Canada with this BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Panzer’s research focus is on using computational mechanics to model and predict the biomechanics of injury following an impact. This research includes developing and using nonlinear finite element and multibody models to simulate high-rate events such as sport impact, automotive crashes, and military events. Current applications of this research include the study of traumatic brain injury for blast and football helmet impacts, pedestrian impact, lower extremity biomechanics and injury, and the development of injury mitigation systems such as helmets and knee airbags.