The lightweight silicone headband can be worn under the helmet when doing sports. Measuring accelerations acting on the human head and the electrical activity of the cerebral cortex,  the invention instantly knows what happens in the brain when a fall or collision occurs.

A team of scientists from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Wrocław University of Science and Technology and two neurosurgeons - from Wrocław and Legnica - are working on the headband. Their device consists of several accelerometers (i.e. sensors measuring accelerations acting on the head) as well as sensors of the pulse, body temperature, blood oxygenation, and acidity of perspiration. There are also electrodes which enable electroencephalography, i.e. EEG - measuring the electrical activity of the cerebral cortex. All this data is stored on a memory card and then processed by a computer. The headband itself is made of lightweight and skin-friendly silicone, with (optional) straps around the middle of the head and ear pads with motion sensors (IMU).

- No one has ever measured what happens to the cerebral cortex during a hit on the head – stresses head of the project, Mariusz Ptak PhD, Dsc, Eng. from the Department of Machine and Vehicle Engineering and Research. - Usually, when a more serious accident occurs, an EEG is performed at the hospital, several dozen minutes afterwards. We have an opportunity to see how the electrical potential in the brain changes in real-time. The skin-adhesive electrodes are some of the most important parts of our headband. Every organism is different and, in some people, even a small injury can cause very serious complications. Therefore, measuring the forces acting on the head alone could be an insufficient indicator to determine the risk of a serious injury. The EEG allows us to take a very close look at everything that happens in the human head.

Up to now, for obvious reasons, real-time impact tests on the human brain have been carried out on the bodies of deceased people.

- However, we don’t know what is happening in the brain of a living person. The results may be completely different from those available in the literature, because many parameters are extremely different, such as the degree of body hydration – explains Johannes Wilhelm, a PhD student at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering participating in this project. - Thanks to the headband we can learn, for example, what leads to the victim’s loss of consciousness. We’ll be able to analyse what waves go through the brain and how it reacts to them.

Clearly, the scientists don’t intend to inflict accidents on people wearing the headband designed and built by them. They want to carry out a large number of tests, hoping that they will also be able to record falls or collisions, which are inevitable when undertaking physical activity. So they invited volunteers practising various sports, including a student of our university who is a professional player of Wrocław’s American football team.

- We already have a lot of data on people's everyday activities, such as jumping up or running, which is also important for us, because we already know how the brain behaves at that time and what kind of stress goes through it - says Marek Sawicki, a PhD student at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and co-author of the idea.

The researchers want to create a model showing how the accelerations in a person's head propagate in conditions of a particular hit, with as much data as possible needed to make the model credible.

- We want to record data in people who ride a bike, ski, snowboard, etc. The greater the diversity, the better it is for our research – adds Johannes Wilhelm. - We may even be interested in data from the headband worn by a person attending a big concert and standing near the sound system.

The members of the team had previously tested the prototype of their invention on a dummy the size of a child, normally used for laboratory crash tests. They dropped the "doll" from swings and ladders at a playground to compare recorded accelerations.

- While experimenting like this, we found out that a child’s playing at a bitumen-covered playground in winter is not the best idea - says  Mariusz Ptak, PhD, DSc. – We performed the measurements at a temperature of about 4 degrees Celsius. The ground, which normally absorbs some of the fall’s energy, is hard like asphalt in such conditions. Our headband recorded that the head of the dummy falling on a rubber granulate-covered ground experienced an acceleration of 100 g, which is really very high and potentially resulting in serious consequences.

The creators of the headband argue that it will not only allow us to trace exactly how brain damage and dysfunction occur as a result of collisions and falls but it can also prove helpful in areas including the development of head protection equipment (e.g. helmet tests). The researchers are also in contact with neurobiologists from the USA who are involved in research related to memory improvement through stimulating the brain with electrodes. Perhaps the headband from Wrocław will also be used in this research.

Moreover, it could be used to monitor the training of professional athletes, helping them to assess the state of concentration and the stress they are under when preparing for the competition season.

The invention is a part of a large project called aHEAD (Advanced Head models for safety Enhancement and medical Development), carried out thanks to the grant named "A numerical system of multi-variant human head models for simulating the pathophysiology of craniocerebral injuries" under the "Leader" programme of the National Centre for Research and Development,  which wrote about here.

The headband is being developed by Mariusz Ptak (WUST), PhD, DSc, Eng,  Monika Ratajczak, PhD, Eng. from the University of Zielona Góra,  Fabio Fernandez, PhD, Eng. from the University of Aveiro in Portugal, the doctoral students Johannes Wilhelm, Marek Sawicki, and Maciej Wnuk from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the University of Zielona Góra, as well as the neurosurgeons Artur Kwiatkowski, MD (Neurosurgery Department of the Provincial Specialist Hospital in Legnica) and Konrad Kubicki (University Clinical Hospital in Wrocław - Neurosurgery Clinic). As for the IT-related works, support is provided by Oliwer Sobolewski, a W10 student.

You can read more about the project on the website dedicated to it.