Mouth guards just got smarter. Those bite guards that protect teeth and impact for football players on the field may soon have some electronics built in. A team at Stanford University is testing a prototype mouth guard with sensors built inside to offer protection, but also to determine any brain injury during practice and games.
Sensors inside the mouth guard will detect movement and impact to provide insight into how different types of blows affect the brain. Even now, science is still learning about how the brain reacts to such trauma. Researchers hope to use this data to not only detect and diagnose injury, but to further research on brain trauma, and the threshold where impact becomes harmful.
Football players have used sensors imbedded in equipment such as helmets for several seasons. The Stanford University researchers and the Seattle-based X2 Impact, which made the bite guards, aim for this to be a less expensive (and possibly more effective) replacement to helmets wired with sensors. Helmets are said to be faulty because they can shift during a game.
The football team at Stanford University is currently testing the mouth guards. The researchers plan to deploy the new protective gear to the Stanford women’s field hockey and lacrosse teams.
X2Impact Official Website
[Via Stanford University School of Medicine: For study of concussions, Stanford athletes use high-tech mouthpiece to record head impact]
