Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

Biomechanical And Psychophysical Underpinnings Of Balance Dysfunction In Individuals With Traumatic Brain Injury, Naphtaly Ehrenberg

Dissertations

Falls are a major burden on healthcare infrastructure, especially in older adults and even more so in older individuals that are living in institutions. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), from 2010 to 2020, unintentional falls were the leading cause of nonfatal emergency department visits for all age groups except among individuals from 15-24 years of age, where unintentional falls ranked a very close second to being unintentionally struck by or against. Among older individuals living in the community, approximately 30-35% fall at least once in a given year, and around three times as …

Alcohol As A Catalyst For Hiv-Associated Neuroinflammation And Tbi-Induced Iron Toxicity, Agnieszka Agas

Dissertations

Alcohol has long been considered an exacerbator of diseases, disorders, and injuries as well as many of the accompanying symptoms. As an alternative approach, this dissertation explores alcohol as a catalyst for two different human disease conditions, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-associated neuroinflammation and traumatic brain injury (TBI)-induced iron toxicity. In HIV-1 infection, this dissertation presents a novel anti-viral drug, called Drug-S, for a possible inhibition and treatment of HIV-1 disease progression.

The first aim explores the influence of alcohol with HIV-associated neuroinflammation on macrophage migration across an in vitro model of the blood brain barrier. There is a gap in …

Blast Shock-Wave Characterization In Experimental Shock Tubes, Sudeepto Kahali

Dissertations

Blast-induced traumatic brain injuries have affected U.S. soldiers deployed for extended periods in the gulf and Afghanistan wars. To identify the biomechanical and biochemical mechanisms of injury, critical in the identification of diagnostic and therapeutic tools, compressed gas-driven shock tubes are used by investigators to study shockwave-animal specimen interactions and its biological consequences. However, shock tubes are designed and operated in a variety of geometry with a range of process parameters, and the quality of shock wave characteristics relevant to field conditions and therefore the study of blast-induced traumatic brain injuries suffered by soldiers is affected by those conditions. Lab-to-lab …

Biomechanical Loading Changes Between Species In Mild Blast-Induced Traumatic Brain Injury, Jose Juan Rodriguez

Dissertations

Blast-induced traumatic brain injury (bTBI) has become one of the leading injury modalities in military personnel and is considered a signature injury in veterans returning from conflicts in the Middle East. One of the main concerns in studying bTBI is translating animal experiments to clinical applications that can service veterans. Significant advances have been made using animal models in relating external shock waves to emerging neuropathophysiological and behavioral outcomes. However, it is unknown if these results are applicable to humans; and if so, can an interspecies transfer function be developed based on size, shape, and material response. This work aims …

Identification Of Neurobiological Mechanisms Associated With Attention Deficits In Adults Post Traumatic Brain Injury, Ziyan Wu

Dissertations

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is one of the major public health concerns with approximately 70 million new cases occurring worldwide per year. It is often caused by a forceful bump, blow, or jolt to the head, resulting in brain tissue damage and normal brain functions disruption. All grades of TBI, ranging from mild to severe, can cause wide-ranging and long-term effects on affected individuals, resulting in physical impairments, and neurocognitive consequences that permanently affect their abilities to perform daily activities. Attention deficits are the most common persisting neurocognitive consequences following TBI, which significantly contribute to poor academic and social functioning, …

Cerebro-Vascular Disruption Mediated Initiation And Propagation Of Traumatic Brain Injury In A Fluid Percussion Injury Model, Xiaotang Ma

Dissertations

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major health problem for over 3.17 million people in the US. There is no FDA-approved drug for the treatment because the injury mechanisms have not been clearly identified. The knowledge gap is addressed here by the lateral fluid percussion injury (FPI) rat model, through the understanding of layer-structured mechanisms from physical vascular rupture to acute necrosis, as well as biochemical changes in perivascular space as secondary events.

Firstly, the cerebrovascular hemorrhage and related infarct volume are investigated as the primary events in moderate FPI, which is found to be increased with injury severity in …

Experimentally Linking Head Kinematics To Brain Deformation, Imouline Algharbi

Theses

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) research is used to study the effects of brain injuries and the rehabilitations for them. TBI contributes to major cause of disability and deaths quantifying up to 30% of all the head injuries. To mimic real world impact to understand the mechanism of injury head-surrogate models are used. This thesis describes a method to record head kinematics from acceleration and angular rate sensors of head-brain surrogate model for blast and blunt injury. This methodology is validated through experimental testing. To get a better insight of the head kinematics experienced by a real skull a drop tower …

Temporal And Spatial Effects Of Shock Overpressure On Blood-Brain Barrier Permeability In Blast-Induced Traumatic Brain Injury, Matthew Joseph Kuriakose

Dissertations

Exposure to shock waves is the leading cause of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in military personnel and blast-induced TBI (bTBI) is considered the signature wound in recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many researchers attempt to replicate field-relevant shock waves in laboratory settings through the use of gas-driven shock tubes in order to investigate the generation and propagation of shock waves and also explore possible mechanisms of bTBI. Among several injury mechanisms of bTBI, damage to the blood-brain barrier (BBB) has been identified as a potential candidate and has been the focus of several clinical and experimental investigations aimed to …

Changes In Nadph Oxidase (Nox) Protein Isoforms And Downstream Reactions As Function Of Time And Overpressure In Blast Tbi, Smit Prakash Shah

Theses

Blast-induced Traumatic brain injury (bTBI) is a leading cause of morbidity in soldiers on the battlefield and training sites with long-term neurological and psychological pathologies. Among many pathological sequela of blast TBI, oxidative stress has been identified as a major factor contributing to the pathophysiology of bTBI. Recent studies have demonstrated activation of oxidative stress pathways following blast injury but their distribution among different brain regions as function of post injury time and Blast over pressure (BOP) have not been explored. The present study examines the protein expression of NADP oxidase (NOX) isoforms 1 & 2, corresponding superoxide production, a …

Spatial And Temporal Deformation Pattern Of The Brain From Blunt Trauma, Abdus Ali

Theses

It is widely accepted that under extreme loadings the soft tissue of the brain will deform inside the skull, creating large amounts of both stress and strain on the tissue. This can result in a focal injury, or in the case of acceleration and deceleration, diffuse injuries. Any attempt at understanding the underlying mechanisms and effects of TBI, have to start by focusing on what is actually occurring within the brain. The objective of this experiment is to record differences in the spatial and temporal patterns of deformation within the brain during blunt trauma when changing impact parameters. A linear …

Rodent Testing Device Surrogate For Shockwave Blast Testing, Anthony C. Misistia

Theses

Many laboratories around the world are conduct shockwave blast injury tests on rodents to simulate blast traumatic brain injury (TBI). Each of these laboratories has different techniques for creating the shockwave blasts as well as positioning the rats. There is no device to determine whether or not the rodent animal models actually experiences a true blast wave in a given set up. This device was developed as a method for verifying rodents undergoing true shockwave blasts through biometrics, instrumentation and the basic biomechanical responses a rodent experiences during such tests. Since the goal of shockwave blast testing is to replicate …

Rate Alterable Traumatic Brain Injury Device For Rodent Models, Radia Abdul Wahab

Dissertations

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a physical impact to the head resulting in functional deficits in memory and motor systems. TBI is a prevalent problem occurring in 1.7 million people annually in the United States (Faul et al. 2010). TBIs can differ greatly in terms of the biomechanics of the impact such as magnitude, direction and rate. Indeed, it is likely that the wide range of TBI outcomes may be due to the physical characteristics of the trauma. Studies to date on impact have used injury devices with limited alterable parameters. Therefore, the existing impact studies have considered the effect …

An In Vitro Study To Characterize A New Automated High Throughput Neuronal Stretch Injury System, Nicolae Valerian Hususan

Theses

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the most prevalent long-term neurological conditions and its overall economic consequences rival that of stroke. Considering the importance of the topic, new models for studying TBI are often designed and created. Based on a model developed by the University of Pennsylvania, NJIT constructed a fully automated version, which injures neuronal cell cultures in uniaxial regime and provides the high experimental yield required in pharmaceutical and neuroscience studies.

In this investigation, a new methodology for culturing primary cortical neurons of rat origin was established. Viable cell cultures developed for the first time in NJIT …

Automated Multi-Well Neural Injury Device, Linda Y. Chen

Theses

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a wide spread pathological problem occurring in 1.4 million individuals every year according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. There are several types of TBI and the most prominent ones are concussion, contusion, hematoma, coup-contrecoup injury and diffuse axonal injury (DAI). The most severe type and the one that is the hardest to diagnose is DAI. DAI occurs mostly due to accidents relating to automobile, motorcycles and in some cases fall and assault, resulting in a "shearing" phenomenon of the brain. Patients with DAI can range from being, mildly injured, severely disabled …