Abstract:

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) affects 45 million people worldwide each year and can lead to neurodegenerative tauopathys such as Alzheimer’s and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. My goal is to enable early detection and prevention of mTBI.  My laboratory has pioneered instrumented mouthguard technologies that precisely measure the acceleration of the head during impact, which we use to drive finite element (FE) models of the brain and calculate injury location and severity. In this talk, I will describe the instrumented mouthguard technology development and validation, as well as initial clinical results of FE computed brain strain compared to novel highly sensitive neuroimaging data. This preliminary data suggests that blood brain barrier disruption, a potential initiator of neurodegeneration, may be very common in contact sports and is detectable in real-time with the mouthguard.  Finally, I will present data on early prototypes of an optimal shock absorber that has the potential to prevent mTBI in helmets for football and other high-risk activities. 

Bio:

David B. Camarillo is Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, (by courtesy) Mechanical Engineering and Neurosurgery at Stanford University. Dr. Camarillo holds a B.S.E in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University, a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and completed postdoctoral fellowships in Biophysics at the UCSF and Biodesign Innovation at Stanford. Dr. Camarillo worked in the surgical robotics industry at Intuitive Surgical and Hansen Medical, before launching his laboratory at Stanford in 2012. His current research focuses on precision human measurement for multiple clinical and physiological areas including the brain, heart, lungs, and reproductive system. Dr. Camarillo has been awarded the Hellman Fellowship, the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program award, among other honors including multiple best paper awards in brain injury and robotic surgery. His research has been funded by the NIH, NSF, DoD, as well as corporations and private philanthropy. His lab’s research has been featured on NPR, the New York Times, The Washington Post, Science News, ESPN, and TED.com as well as other media outlets aimed at education of the public.