An application to predict Traumatic Brain Injuries through analyzing variations of patterns in temperature.
Abstract:
Bibliography/Citations:
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Rzechorzek et al. (2022). A daily temperature rhythm in the human brain predicts
survival after brain injury, Brain, Volume 145, Issue 6, June 2022, Pages 2031–2048,
https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awab466
Caddy, B. (August 1, 2022). “Wearables and temperature tracking – the whole story It's
rumored to arrive on the next Apple Watch – but why?”
https://www.wareable.com/wearable-tech/wearables-and-temperature-tracking-8878
Theye, F., & Mueller, K. A. (2004). “Heads Up”: Concussions in High School Sports.
Clinical Medicine and Research, 2(3), 165-171. https://doi.org/10.3121/cmr.2.3.165
Wang, H., Wang, B., Normoyle, K. P., Jackson, K., Spitler, K., Sharrock, M. F., Miller, C.
M., Best, C., Llano, D., & Du, R. (2014). Brain temperature and its fundamental properties:
a review for clinical neuroscientists. Frontiers in neuroscience, 8, 307.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2014.00307
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Umer Izhar, Lasitha Piyathilaka, D.M.G. Preethichandra,
Sensors for brain temperature measurement and monitoring – a review,
Neuroscience Informatics, Volume 2, Issue 4, 2022, 100106, ISSN 2772-5286,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuri.2022.100106
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772528622000681)
Abstract: Cerebral temperature is one of the key indicators of fever, trauma, and physical
activity. It has been reported that the temperature of the healthy brain is up to 2°C higher than
the core body temperature. The main methods to monitor brain temperature include infrared
spectroscopy, radiometry, and acoustic thermometry. While these methods are useful, they are
not very effective when portability is desired, the temperature needs to be monitored for a longer
period, or localized monitoring is required. This paper presents a short review of invasive and
non-invasive brain temperature monitoring sensors and tools. We discuss the type of
temperature sensors that can be integrated with probes. Furthermore, implantable and
bioresorbable sensors are briefly mentioned. Biocompatibility and invasiveness of the sensors in
terms of their functional materials, encapsulation, and size are highlighted.
Keywords: Brain temperature; Temperature monitoring; Temperature sensors; Fever; Neural
temperature
“Heads up”; Concussions
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1069089/
https://www.wareable.com/wearable-tech/wearables-and-temperature-tracking-8878
A number of newer Fitbit devices – the Fitbit Sense and Charge 5 (and Charge
4) – measure your skin temperature throughout the night to determine your
average temperature.
After three nights, the Fitbit app will show you a personal skin temperature
baseline and a personal range of variation. Instead of producing a skin
temperature number, which Dr Tyler says bears little resemblance to your core
temperature, the wearable will look for deviations from what's normal.
“Your baseline is used to provide insight into when your skin temperature is
higher or lower than your baseline and if it is within your personal range, as it
is natural for your skin temperature to vary night to night,” Dr Conor
Heneghan, of Fitbit says.
Additional Project Information
- Research Journal
Research Plan:
RATIONALE:
Approximately 300,000 cases of mild concussions occur each season for high school
and collegiate athletes. Concussions make up approximately 5.5% of high school
injuries and 6.2% of collegiate injuries (Theye & Mueller, 2004). Death due to traumatic
brain injury (TBI) is often preventable when early care is provided. Early detection and
treatment of brain injury is key to reducing mortality rates and brain damage from TBI.
An effort has been made to correlate data from research done on brain temperature and
the severity of TBI. In 2022, new findings related to the fluctuation of brain and body
temperature intervals were reported to predict mortality (Rzechorzek et al., 2022).
With the development of an alert system application that delivers an individual’s
recorded temperature intervals to decision-makers such as parents and coaches, more
effective efforts can be made to treat head-injured students early enough to save lives
and reduce the severity of brain damage.
RESEARCH QUESTION(S):
Can analysis of patterns in human temperature be utilized to more effectively treat
traumatic brain injuries (TBI)?
Can rhythms in Temperature predict severity of Traumatic Brain Injuries?
Can a service be implemented to effectively communicate the occurence of a traumatic brain injury(TBI)?
What would be the optimal Infrastructure for the implemenation of the application?
HYPOTHESIS(ES):
Awareness of daily human temperature intervals in comparison to post-head injury
changes in temperature intervals can predict traumatic brain injury (TBI) and facilitate
more effective medical care.
ENGINEERING GOAL(S):
My engineering goal is to improve health care for Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI)
including concussions, by developing and implementing an Application / Service that
can alert decision-makers (such as parents and coaches) of the subject’s healthy
temperature intervals and promote collection and analysis of post head-injury of
temperature interval changes, thus reducing the risk of complications and death.
Through the development of this alert system via app, more education and effort can be
made to treat head-injured athletes early enough to save lives.
EXPECTED OUTCOMES:
Procedures: Oral temperature will be the measurement used to analyze interval
changes in response to traumatic brain injury (TBI). Synthetic data generators will be
utilized to temporarily fill in for the lack of data that will be collected. Analysis tools such
as Biodare2 and Cosinor will be used to analyze existing intervals of human
temperature data from a published study (Rzechorzek et al., 2022) to develop a unique
algorithm for app development.
Risk and Safety: By utilizing commonly used tools such as Biodare2, Cosinor, and app
development software the risks are minimal or non-existent. No data security issues will
exist at this stage of the project due to using published interval data. Any input of human
temperature data at this stage of the project will be synthesized to allow for testing of
the app.
Data Analysis: Data analysis will primarily consist of utilizing libraries such as Biodare2
and Cosinor to thoroughly analyze the intervals of human temperature. However, since
Brain Temperature (TBr) is highly dependent on certain factors of the human body that
vary throughout the day, the usage of a linear mixed-model approach will be chosen to
account for these issues. Specifically, when making measurements, the time interval
was chosen to be spread out through three parts of the day (morning, afternoon, and
evening) to account for the possible variations and time of diagnosis. The intended
purpose of this measurement system is to clearly differentiate between standard
temperature variations and abnormal temperature deviations, which would not be
eminent in two-point systems. Therefore, a three-point system is the most efficient and
accurate way to achieve this intended goal. Due to the duration of time to obtain and
fulfill the project, tools like Synthetic Data Generators will be utilized. Additionally,
analysis includes the task of informing decision makers of the subject (i.e. parents /
coaches) through highly-efficient graph algorithms, by transferring temperature data and
instructions in advance of head injuries that could be used in comparison to post-head
injury temperature data.
Questions and Answers
1. What was the major objective of your project and what was your plan to achieve it?
The purpose of this project is the development of an app that proactively evaluates patterns in temperature to predict possible occurrences of Traumatic Brain Injuries at the convenience of the user, and delivers decision-makers important information that can save lives and reduce the severity of brain injuries.
Approximately 300,000 cases of mild concussions occur each season for high school and collegiate athletes. Concussions make up approximately 5.5% of high school injuries and 6.2% of collegiate injuries (Theye & Mueller, 2004). Death due to TBI is often preventable when early care is provided. Early detection and treatment of brain injury is key to reducing mortality rates and brain damage from TBI. The TBIdentifier app can aid in educating and informing users and decision makers.
- Was that goal the result of any specific situation, experience, or problem you encountered?
The goal of developing this project was a direct result of seeing the lack of awareness of the brain, despite being the host of all functions in the body.
b. Were you trying to solve a problem, answer a question, or test a hypothesis?
My goal was to solve a problem for the lack of awareness of brain injuries, and to utilize advanced technology to raise awareness of daily human temperature variations in comparison to post-head injury. Temperature variations can predict traumatic brain injury (TBI) and facilitate more effective medical care.
2. What were the major tasks you had to perform in order to complete your project?
The conception and ideation of my project followed me reading a journal article which served as a base for the analysis of data. The research portion of my project consisted of me trying to find the optimal infrastructure to implement the concept of the idea, and the specific libraries. Then, to develop the TBIdentifier App, multiple utilities had to be used. Some of the utilities used follow as below:
Apple HealthKit - for the efficient querying from the user’s health repository
Apple ChartsUI - for the visual representation of past temperatures
SwiftUI - for the basic development of the app
Firebase - for the profile building (Contacts)
- N/A, I was participating individually.
3. What is new or novel about your project?
The research of the brain is a booming topic recently, however, the connection between the vital signs of the brain and the physical aspect of the body has been researched to a miniscule extent. My project defines the intersection of advanced technology and abstract analyses of the rhythms of the brain, which have not been pondered upon in prior. Additionally, my project provides a new analysis for an aspect(Temperature) which has not been paid attention to.
a. Is there some aspect of your project's objective, or how you achieved it that you haven't done before?
This is the first time I came across a problem with an abstract mindset, which would prove to be helpful in being innovative later in the project. Additionally, this was the first time I attempted to develop an application for the general use of people. Also, this was the first time I came across advanced statistical analyses, and attempted to understand the fundamental logic behind them.
b. Is your project's objective, or the way you implemented it, different from anything you have seen?
In the past, there has been an abundant amount of research regarding concussions, however, there has been close to no research regarding the analysis of patterns of body temperature to conclude a result regarding the physical status of the human brain. My project specifically focuses on predicting a traumatic brain injury which would prove to be more rare. In addition, my application provides a direct implementation to this concept, which provides any user with a resource which could possibly prove helpful when required.
c. If you believe your work to be unique in some way, what research have you done to confirm that it is?
My work extends on new research on brain temperature rhythms published in 2022. This research was the one of very few articles which provided information beneficial and contextual to the intended purpose of the project. Hence, it would most likely not be possible for other works to be similar to the work of my project.
4. What was the most challenging part of completing your project?
a. What problems did you encounter, and how did you overcome them?
It was difficult to get access to data-sets regarding brain temperature, because of the age-restriction required by facilities, and since I was not affiliated with any group during the development of this project. Additionally, during the implementation of the app, there were some libraries(HealthKit), which required entitlements to pertain access to. Hence, it was not possible to access some functions, and adjustments had to be made.
b. What did you learn from overcoming these problems?
I learned that innovative material will require multiple iterations to successfully fulfill. Also, I learned that there should be additional time committed for the possibilities of events which can stand as a hurdle to the development of the project.
5. If you were going to do this project again, are there any things you would you do differently the next time?
Aspirations can stand as a mental block in the process of development, as changes will be required during the development of a project. In my project, my aspiration was to statistically analyze a large dataset, however, this was not possible. So, my mind took time to adjust since it had a strong connection to that idea.
6. Did working on this project give you any ideas for other projects?
Working on this project during the span of the time given in the science fair proved to bring other ideas for entwining different aspects into the project. This was due to a lack of time, which prohibited the time given to things like statistical analyses. Hence, other ideas would consist of extending my current project to broaden the possible effects of it by doing things I was not able to do, and to make it more efficient for later purposes.
7. How did COVID-19 affect the completion of your project?
There were not many relevant effects of COVID-19 to the completion of my project.