Traumatic brain injury (TBI) affects nearly ten million people globally per year and is largely linked to sporting accidents. Knowing mechanical properties of brain tissues is imperative to diagnosis and prevention of TBIs. Yet, past and current methods yield a wide spectrum of brain tissue stiffness measurements with no clear convergence. Fiber optical tweezers (FOTs) have the potential to bridge this gap. Optical tweezers (OTs) are routinely used in biomechanics studies, but have not yet been used for brain measurements. FOTs are small, modular tools capable of trapping microspheres via laser illumination, allowing for mechanical interrogation of a local medium. FOTs were fabricated to realize brain white matter stiffness measurements, that are similar to those seen in literature.

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• DeBenedictis, Matthew Paul
• Chiang, Li-Yang
• Zhang, Qindong

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• E-project-042419-145224

Advisor

• Liu, Yuxiang

Year

• 2019

Sponsor

• NSF

Date created

• 2019-04-24

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Mechanical Engineering

Rights statement

• In Copyright