Crystals help soldiers' brain injuries
Crystals attached to soldiers' helmets could help gauge brain injuries
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Thursday, 07, Aug 2008 08:00
Colour-changing crystals attached to soldiers' clothing could help doctors to determine the extent of brain damage from bomb blasts, it has been claimed.
Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia believe the crystals could detect damage where other devices, such as MRI brain scans, cannot.
According to a report on the crystals in the New Scientist, soldiers frequently suffer from blast-related traumatic brain injury following exposure to shock waves coming from improvised explosive devices.
While much of this damage cannot be detected by MRI scans, it can still have harmful consequences.
The crystals come on a thin film that can be attached to the soldier's clothing or helmet and have the ability to change colour.
This is because the crystal's colour is determined by its structure, so if it is struck by shock waves from a blast that changes its structure then the colour will change too.
"Depending on the damage, you'll have different colour intensities," Shu Yang, one of the researchers who developed the device, told the New Scientist.
"Based on that information we can extract how much force the soldier has received."
The researchers plan to develop a method to quantify the colour changes and translate this into a measure of neurological damage.
This could then help doctors to more accurately gauge the severity of the brain injury and treat the patient appropriately.