Project Description - Summer 2014 Head Injury Prediction: Development of an Injury Prediction Model for Motor Vehicle Crashes Using Medical Imaging Head injuries are the leading cause of death in motor vehicle crashes. This project focuses on development of models of the brain and skull for use in predicting head injuries in car crashes. Geometric and material property changes in the brain and skull will be determined with age and gender. A radiological analysis of head CT and MRI scans will be used to quantify anatomical changes and develop a scalable finite element model of the skull and brain for an individual of any gender and age. The model will be tested using computerized simulations of traumatic impacts to develop age and gender-based head injury metrics.
Other Notes: This research effort will be in the Center for Injury Biomechanics (CIB) and you will have the opportunity to work on a range of projects in the field of automobile safety, military restraints, and sports biomechanics. The CIB has two primary research facilities. The first is in the WFU School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, NC and the second is at Virginia Tech. The research at the CIB combines experimental testing, computational modeling, and case analysis to investigate human injury biomechanics.
Location:
Joel Stitzel, PhD Professor, Biomedical Engineering Program Leader & Director, WFU Campus VT-WFU Center for Injury Biomechanics School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences 575 N. Patterson Ave, Suite 120 Winston-Salem, NC 27101 www.CIB.vt.edu