Woodruff Reports: Cutting-Edge Brain Technology

Dec. 14, 2007 — -- Each year, 1.4 million Americans suffer traumatic brain injuries. Thousands of those have been service men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The military is now teaming up with private medical companies and making major advances in treating brain trauma. Four new technologies are showing incredible promise.

Virginia Tech football players have been wearing special helmets lately. The players are helping test helmets for American troops that monitor and record impact. The data collected from those sensors help researchers gauge the magnitude of each impact and their exact location.

Meanwhile at Fort Belvoir, Va., the military is measuring the power of explosions on test dummies wearing the sensored helmets.

"We're experimenting now with helmet devices that will measure the blast or measure the velocity of a soldier's head as it moves," said Gen. George William Casey, chief of staff of the U.S. Army. "And the soldier will go back to a base and it can be actually downloaded onto a computer so we measure what that soldier's been exposed to."

Another groundbreaking technology is the transcranial doppler, which measures blood flow inside the brain. The measurements allow doctors to determine a course of treatment as soon as an the injury occurs.

"The key is to improve the blood flow to the brain at the time of the injury," said neurologist Thomas DeGravo.

DeGravo explained that if something wasn't working properly in the brain, the transcranial doppler would show an extreme increase in blood flow. For example, the device could detect if someone had just been through an improvised explosive device blast, making it a useful medical tool for troops.

Military and civilian medical schools are currently testing wobble plates and they're about four to six months away from the front lines. The plate measures how wobbly you are after an impact and compares it to your normal state. The readings help doctors diagnose the level of trauma and could help troops after an explosion as much as a prize fighter after a knockout.