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Vaught-Hemingway, Ole Miss on forefront of concussion research

This technology could ultimately change the world for victims of concussions, traumatic brain injuries and one day possibly autism and learning disorders.

Therese Apel
Clarion Ledger
The 'X-patch' goes behind a player's ear or in his mouthpiece and collects real-time data on head impacts on the field.

In the fall, Vaught-Hemingway Stadium will be the only facility in the world equipped with the capability to detect the mechanism of a concussion in athletes in real time.

It's a huge concept, and it goes far beyond bragging rights, and even a little beyond the exponentially increased safety of the athletes on the field. This technology, and the network of researchers, professors, and others behind it could ultimately change the world for victims of concussions, traumatic brain injuries and one day possibly autism and learning disorders.

The technology as it applies on the field begins in an "X-patch" engineered by X2 Biosystems, a company that does similar hardware and software for all 32 NFL teams, as well as hockey, soccer, and the Department of Defense. The patch is put either behind an athlete's ear or in his mouthpiece and it registers impact to the head.

Assistant Engineering Professor Matthew Morrison says the underlying technology in the patches allow medical professionals to tell the angle of the impact, as well as the rotational forces. Eight wireless spots around the field can instantly access the data so that the team's athletic staff can better assess what a player is dealing with internally after a hit.

"Basically there's no thumbs up or thumbs down assessment tool that says whether or not someone has a concussion, but this gives them the information to have a rapid and accurate assessment and help them decide how quickly they can return the athlete to play," Morrison said.

Morrison said when he got to Ole Miss, he wanted to find out what the state of education was in Mississippi and what avenues he could help create to improve health and benefit the university. When he found that sports were such a passion in the state, he began to process some ideas and ended up pitching the idea of having wireless spots that could instantaneously record the data, rather than processing it after the fact like previous technology.

The technology that predates the X-patch allows medical professionals to know the severity of the concussion, and the cognitive skills that are affected, but they weren't able to tell the correlation of the force and the number of hits that caused the concussion.

"How much force is needed and how many repetitions does it take?" said Shannon Singletary, the Senior Associate Athletic Director for Health and Sports Performance at Ole Miss. "What this new sensor tells us is both of those. It tells us exactly where the head is taking the impact, the exact number of hits during the practice or competition that the athlete has received, and the amount of force with which they're hit."

The data can even be used in conjunction with game films to determine whether modifying an athlete's tackling technique could help prevent repeated jarring blows, Singletary said.

It can also show when there's an impact that's not caused by a hit, like if a player was thrown to the ground. That translates to other sports like basketball and volleyball, Singletary said.

"Across the NCAA there's a huge emphasis on the well-being of your athletes. At Ole Miss, we're not just giving lip service, we're investing hugely in the resources it takes to insure that," Singletary said.

It's the tip of the iceberg, said neuroscientist Dr. Roy Thurston, Assistant Professor of Special Education. He came to the university with a background in cognitive rehabilitation after an injury. In the past, he said, figuring out the severity or amount of time since the injury could be a guessing game.

"If you do any damage to the frontal lobes of your brain, that's the executive control center. That's what makes you you," he said. "If that's damaged, your executive function, your behavior, your memory issues and your ability to control your behavior can change drastically. It doesn't take much, actually."

Thurston went on to say that the research now being done at Ole Miss in cognitive rehabilitation after an injury, tied in with the information brought about by the new concussion technology could help spearhead changes that could reverse the damage of traumatic brain injury in warfighters and trauma victims. Using education to re-acclimate the brain to a larger workload after its injury can help build it to be as strong as before, or even stronger, Thurston said.

"The brain's like a muscle, and the more you use it the better the connections can be made, and you can rewire around damaged areas. Lots of people in the pure sciences haven't really studied that," he said. "People want to get back to their lives, and some people have done it on their own, they've gone back to university or college, but it's too fast and too much. We noticed we could slowly get them through our program."

Between the athletic, the education, and the pharmaceutical programs at Ole Miss, the cutting edge studies are being done to potentially make even learning disabilities and various forms of autism something that is at least partially reversible or correctable.

"Before all we did was treat these things medically, but the brain secretes the mind, and if that mechanism is damaged we need to get it healed," Thurston said. "You can use that information and reverse-engineer that for kids with autism and learning disabilities and all sorts of different cognitive problems."

"Ole Miss is really in the forefront on this," Thurston said.

All these things are a part of the "Heads in the Game" research program which will take place June 28-July 28 on the Ole Miss campus, which was made possible by a grant from X2 Biosystems. High school students from Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee are eligible to apply for the program in which they will participate in Morrison's ongoing research concerning concussion management for contact-sport athletes, they will explore the fundamentals of biomedical science, computer science and engineering. They will also help set up and test the equipment in Vaught-Hemingway, making the 2015 season the first season it is up and running.

Students must have a score of 25 or higher on the ACT and at least a 3.0 high school GPA to be eligible. The application deadline is June 1. For more information, visit http://www.olemiss.edu/headsinthegame.

Contact Therese Apel at tapel@gannett.com. Follow @TRex21 on Twitter.