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Project

Does it all start with a head impact? Biomechanical analysis of post-traumatic neurodegenerative diseases

Neurodegenerative diseases form a large health problem worldwide for which currently no treatment exists. Neurodegeneration is related to the spreading of toxic misfolded proteins (prions) through the brain, causing cell death. Lots of studies have approached this complex problem from a clinical, biological or molecular point of view, but the mechanisms behind the development of these diseases are still poorly understood. This project will study, for the first time, the onset and spreading of neurodegenerative diseases using a biomechanical approach. Clinical studies have shown a clear link between traumatic brain injury (TBI) and the development of neurodegeneration: a higher risk of neurodegeneration is observed after a TBI. In this project, an innovative continuum-mechanics-based framework is proposed that will bring significant new insights into how acute head trauma can lead to neurodegeneration. The overall goal is to define a biofidelic numerical model that predicts both the initiation and spreading of neurodegeneration after TBI. In the first step, mechanical properties of neurological tissues will be investigated. Secondly, a damage function for prion accumulation after a head impact will be defined based on literature data and implemented into a finite element (FE) head model. Starting from this damage initiation, spreading of the prions will be implemented in the FE model in the third step. Finally, the research hypothesis will be tested on real-life data.

Date:23 Sep 2019 →  Today
Keywords:Traumatic brain injury, Finite element head modeling, Brain tissue characterization, Post-traumatic neurodegeneration
Disciplines:Biomechanics, Biomedical modelling, Neurological and neuromuscular diseases, Continuum mechanics, Tissue and organ biomechanics
Project type:PhD project