IIE - The mechanics of head impacts in football and its relationto brain trauma

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With 265 million people actively playing association football (more commonly football or soccer) worldwide, enjoyed by those from all genders, ages and levels of skill, links between football participation and increased risk of neurodegenerative disease have hit the headlines in recent years. The FIELD study, carried out by the University of Glasgow alongisde the FA and PFA, showed that former professional footballers are three and a half times more likely to die of brain disease than the matched population.With a proven link between playing football and increased risk of brain disease, the FA's new focus,as outlined in their 2021 call for research, is to answer the following:"What is the cause of the observed increased risk of death from neurodegenerative disorders in formerprofessional footballers found in the FIELD study?"The proposed research project would utilise the Finite Element Method (FEM) to provide new insight into the behaviour of pressure waves inside the human brain following impacts such as those experienced when playing football. In particular, the University of Edinburgh's isDynamics in-house Finite Element Head Model (FEHM) would be further developed and validated for its pressure wave response. An initial numeical study on interface propagation of pressure waves during like-to-like contact of cranial matter will be carried out, providing a better understanding of dynamic pressure mechanics within the brain. The findings will then be applied to isDynamics' in-house FEHM, and first-of-its-kind validation of the numerical models will be carried out using marker-based motion capture techniques, and supplemented with accelerometer-based mouth guard sensor data.The final stage of the project will be to use the validated FEHM to accurately simulate head impacts directly representative of those experienced in football (such as head-to-ball and head-to-head). This will provide a detailed understanding on the state of the brain during and immediately after impact, which may assist in the explanation of the link between football participation and brain trauma. By using a variety of models the effect of different factors on the mechanical stress state of the brain, such as type of ball, and player age and gender, can be understood. This will be used to provide detail on who is most at risk of brain trauma in football, and how it can be mitigated, resulting in the contribution to an evidence-based strategy for guidance in football surrounding head impacts.