arXiv subjects

Alison Brooks

Publications and source records attributed to Alison Brooks.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Head Kinematics and Brain Tissue Deformation from Soccer Heading: A Review of Implications for Brain Injury Risk

Purpose: Repeated heading of soccer balls has raised concerns of potential long-term neurological effects. Consequently, numerous studies have estimated head kinematics and brain deformation due to soccer headers across different cohorts and play scenarios to identify higher risk conditions. However, heterogeneity in study design, data collection, and analysis has produced inconsistent findings, and injury risk is infrequently reported. Therefore, a meta-analysis of the existing literature was conducted to identify knowledge gaps and inform future studies assessing injury risk in soccer. Methods: We synthesized data from studies reporting head kinematics or brain deformation from soccer headers on human subjects. The data from these studies were analyzed to obtain the risk of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) based on applicable injury metrics and risk curves. Results: The meta-analysis revealed specific trends, indicating that match scenarios, corner and goal-kicks, top and oblique impacts, and older age cohorts were associated with higher head kinematics, while sex-based trends were inconclusive. The choice of sensor system affected the estimated head kinematics, with headband sensors consistently measuring higher kinematics than mouthpiece sensors. The data showed large variability stemming from heterogeneous study designs, limiting the applicability of the observed trends. These factors also influenced injury risk predictions, with estimated concussion risks generally below 20%. Conclusion: This review reveals trends in mTBI risk from soccer heading across different cohorts and play scenarios. It also underscores the need for standardized reporting of kinematics and brain deformation to enable mTBI risk estimation and meaningful cross-study comparisons.

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arXiv2025

Effect of modeling subject-specific cortical folds on brain injury risk prediction under blunt impact loading

Purpose: Computational head models are essential tools for studying the risk of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) under different activities and across populations. However, different computational models incorporate varied levels of anatomical details, such as cortical folds. In this study, we aim to determine the effect of modeling cortical folds on mTBI risk assessment. Methods: We compared the gyrencephalic (with cortical folds) and lissencephalic (without cortical folds) FE models of 18 subjects aged 9 - 18 years, under a rotational head acceleration event. A rotational acceleration of 10 krad/s$^2$ and 10 ms duration was simulated about each principal head axis. We analyzed different mTBI injury metrics, including maximum principal strain (MPS95), maximum principal strain rate (MPSR95), and cumulative strain damage measure (CSDM15), for the whole brain as well as for specific regions of interest (ROIs). Results: Modeling cortical folds consistently predicted higher injury metrics across all individuals and rotational direction, with the bias (mean $\pm$ std. dev.) of $-21.17\pm 9.1\%$ in MPS95, $-17.1 \pm 7.6\%$ in MPSR95, and $-14.4 \pm 11.3\%$ in CSDM15. Modeling cortical folds significantly affected the spatial strain distributions, with the DICE similarity coefficient on peak MPS ranging between $0.07-0.43$ and DICE on CSDM15 ranging between $0.42-0.70$; and increasing the peak injury metrics even in the geometrically unaltered regions of interest, such as the corpus callosum, cerebellum, and brain stem, by up to $50\%$. Conclusions: The study finds that the inclusion of cortical folds significantly alters the pattern of deformation in the brain, thereby affecting the mTBI risk predictions head rotations.

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arXiv2025

Field evaluation of a wearable instrumented headband designed for measuring head kinematics

Purpose: To study the relationship between soccer heading and the risk of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), we previously developed an instrumented headband and data processing scheme to measure the angular head kinematics of soccer headers. Laboratory evaluation of the headband on an anthropomorphic test device showed good agreement with a reference sensor for soccer ball impacts to the front of the head. In this study, we evaluate the headband in measuring the full head kinematics of soccer headers in the field. Methods: The headband was evaluated under typical soccer heading scenarios (throw-ins, goal-kicks, and corner-kicks) on a human subject. The measured time history and peak kinematics from the headband were compared with those from an instrumented mouthpiece, which is a widely accepted method for measuring head kinematics in the field. Results: The time history agreement (CORA scores) between the headband and the mouthpiece ranged from 'fair' to 'excellent', with the highest agreement for angular velocities (0.79 \pm 0.08) and translational accelerations (0.73 \pm 0.05) and lowest for angular accelerations (0.67 \pm 0.06). A Bland-Altman analysis of the peak kinematics from the headband and mouthpiece found the mean bias to be 40.9% (of the maximum mouthpiece reading) for the angular velocity, 16.6% for the translational acceleration, and-14.1% for the angular acceleration. Conclusion: The field evaluation of the instrumented headband showed reasonable agreement with the mouthpiece for some kinematic measures and impact conditions. Future work should focus on improving the headband performance across all kinematic measures.

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arXiv2025

Laboratory evaluation of a wearable instrumented headband for rotational head kinematics measurement

Mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) are a highly prevalent condition with heterogeneous outcomes between individuals. A key factor governing brain tissue deformation and the risk of mTBI is the rotational kinematics of the head. Instrumented mouthguards are a widely accepted method for measuring rotational head motions, owing to their robust sensor-skull coupling. However, wearing mouthguards is not feasible in all situations, especially for long-term data collection. Therefore, alternative wearable devices are needed. In this study, we present an improved design and data processing scheme for an instrumented headband. Our instrumented headband utilizes an array of inertial measurement units (IMUs) and a new data-processing scheme based on continuous wavelet transforms to address sources of error in the IMU measurements. The headband performance was evaluated in the laboratory on an anthropomorphic test device, which was impacted with a soccer ball to replicate soccer heading. When comparing the measured peak rotational velocities (PRV) and peak rotational accelerations (PRA) between the reference sensors and the headband for impacts to the front of the head, the correlation coefficients (r) were 0.80 and 0.63, and the normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) values were 0.20 and 0.28, respectively. However, when considering all impact locations, r dropped to 0.42 and 0.34 and NRMSE increased to 0.5 and 0.41 for PRV and PRA, respectively. This new instrumented headband improves upon previous headband designs in reconstructing the rotational head kinematics resulting from frontal soccer ball impacts, providing a potential alternative to instrumented mouthguards.

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