Professor Mina Pelegri (PI) and David I. Shreiber (co-PI) in collaboration John Georgiadis (PI), co-PI Konstantinos Arfanakis (co-PI) at IIT have been awarded a Collaborative Research to study Multiple Scale Biomechanics of Tissue Damage in the White Matter of the Human Central Nervous System. In this collaborative research project, the focus is on identifying the injury thresholds for individual axons within white matter when the tissue is exposed to dynamic, mechanical stretch. We expect that damage to individual axons in their in situ state depends not only on the strain they experience at the micro-scale, but also the strain rate. We also hypothesize the axon trajectory, and specifically points at which axons enter and exit white matter tracts and locations where axons cross, are points of stress concentrations and therefore more susceptible to damaging stress and strain.