 Scientists are studying the brains of football players and may be coming close to finding the leading cause of concussions. My name is Athena and this is your CYPOD. They recently found that when an area deep inside of the brain is shaken up more rapidly than the surrounding areas, this leads to concussions and other mild traumatic brain injuries. Due to the mechanical complexity of the brain, they found that there isn't necessarily a direct relationship between different kinds of bumps to the head and the likelihood of injury. Scientists at Stanford University combined data recorded from football players with computer simulations of the brain. They did this with 31 college football players and monitoring them during their games with special mouth guards that recorded how the players' heads moved after an impact. They recorded a few cases in which players suffered concussions. They found that there is a huge difference between impacts that led to concussions and those that did not. They found that it truly depends on where exactly the brain shakes during impact, rather than where the impact on the head is. Computer models show that the entirety of the brain actually shakes back and forth around 30 times a second in unison. However, in cases of injury, the motion of the brain is so much more complex because scientists have found that the corpus callosum shakes more rapidly than the rest of the brain. The corpus callosum is a wide, flat bundle of nerve fibers beneath the cortex, which is like a bridge between the two hemispheres of the brain, aka connecting the left brain to the right brain, and it is the path of communication between the two parts. It is also the largest among the various white matter structures in the central nervous system. Concussions are affecting millions of people, yet exactly how concussions come about remain somewhat of a mystery. So the goal here is to understand the biomechanics of the brain during an impact. This way, engineers could better diagnose, treat, and hopefully prevent a concussion. Using the data scientists plan on comparing it to similar data from NFL players. This way, they can have direct comparisons and try to figure out what exactly happens in the brain that led to a concussion. They hope to even be able to measure the maximum head acceleration during an impact. If scientists better understand how the brain moves after an impact and what movement causes the most damage, there will be a potential to create a better helmet design for football players or creating technologies that can do on-site diagnostics, for example, in football and potentially make a sideline decision in real time. If you guys liked this video, be sure to like and subscribe and catch us on the first Saturday of every month at 2100 UTC. Till next time, be sure to keep learning.