Brain Mechanics

>160,000 people had deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s, tremor and OCD. There is potential for wider use of such devices to treat a range of pathologies. This research focuses on the stress/stain distribution around the device during activity or trauma. A phantom brain model with regional mechanical property variation is developed here and tested using advanced surface and volumetric imaging methods to characterise the strain fields around the devices.

Work conducted by Tom Pritchard, PhD Thesis 2025, funded by the Swansea University Research Excellence Scholarship.