ERI: Toward Unfolding the Effect of Brain Sex Variations in Biomechanics of Traumatic Brain Injury

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This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).This Engineering Research Initiation (ERI) award will support research on sex-based differences in brain structure. Specifically, this project will quantify how these brain structural variations affect traumatic brain injury risk and outcomes. Traumatic brain injury is a common cause of cognitive and behavioral deficits. Traumatic brain injury is caused by impact to the head that deforms and tears the brain tissue. Like other brain diseases and injuries, there are sex differences in prevalence, onset, and outcomes. However, the factors that contribute to these differences are not fully understood. The work will identify the factors that contribute to these differences in the vulnerability and severity of injury. Some of these sex differences can be caused by the anatomical and structural differences that exist between male and female brains. This work will characterize and computationally model brain anatomical and structural details. This work will also determine how the brain tissue deforms during the head impact. This work will also predict whether, where, and how severe the brain tissue and cells get injured following head impact. This research has the potential to contribute to long-term brain health, and thus affect social and economic health-related costs and quality of life for millions of people. Finally, this research will provide opportunities for involvement of first-generation female and minority students in research projects and positively impact engineering education.All brain computational models, tissue thresholds, and safety standards for traumatic brain injury are based on a single or the average adult male brain, thus their outcomes, findings, and effectiveness are biased towards males. The lack of sex-specific knowledge has held back success in reducing the number of traumatic brain injuries and mitigating the post-injury outcomes in both sexes but especially in females. This study will address this knowledge gap and can contribute in reducing the number of injuries and mitigating its outcomes. The research team will identify and characterize the brain structural features that vary between females and males and investigate the effect of these brain structural sex variations on the brain biomechanical responses in head trauma exposures and the susceptibility and post-injury outcomes by developing sex-specific brain models.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.