Traumatic Brain Injury Reauthorization Act of 2013
The Traumatic Brain Injury Reauthorization Act of 2013 would amend the Public Health Service Act to reauthorize appropriations for FY2014-FY2018 for: (1) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) projects to reduce the incidence of traumatic brain injury, and (2) traumatic brain injury surveillance systems or registries.
Traumatic brain injury modeling
While modeling itself only gives estimations, research based on these estimations could give rise to amazing technology. For example, a human head and combat helmet were modeled under blast waves, and the results showed that the helmet did very little to stop blast-induced damage. With this information, a new type of combat helmet could be created that minimizes the damage that blast waves can cause. This technology could then also be applied to general armor, or even clothing (blast waves damage internal organs as well). This kind of advancement is only the beginning of TBI reduction. Methods such as genetic manipulation may also become available in the future that could increase the stress and strain thresholds for neurons, or perhaps methods for healing the brain altogether will be created based on the modeling done in the present.