Concussions are widespread form of injury in sports medicine with life-long consequences. Recent discoveries demonstrated long-term neurodegenerative diseases in former football players related to concussions occurred earlier in their life. While context for occurrence of concussion is known (hit in the head), its exact mechanism of occurrence is largely unknown.
The aim of Gabbie's senior thesis was to create a methodology for correlating mechanical consequences of head impacts – stress and strain in brain tissue determined using Finite Element Modelling (FEM) – with clinical outcomes on an individual scale: diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and concussion diagnosis.
Her research is featured in Princeton news - congrats to Gabbie for outstanding work.