- This is my helmet I use

for biking around the neighborhood.

As you can see,

it has a hard outer shell

(fist taps)

with some foam padding on the inside.

Helmets come in all kinds of shapes and sizes,

but the basic design hasn't changed much

in the past few decades.

- You could almost go to 7/11 and buy beer cooler

and cut it up into styrofoam,

get a nice big roll of duct tape,

tape it all together, put it on your head,

and you've got a helmet

that's equivalent to a lot of the helmets

that are being sold.

- This is UC Berkeley Neurologist, Bob Knight,

and he thinks we can do better.

Now, wearing a helmet

is always better than no helmet at all,

but Bob has a whole new design

that's better at protecting the brain

from traumatic injuries,

and of course, we had to give it a try.

(bright music)

Today's helmets mainly focus on shielding our heads

from direct impact so your skull doesn't crack.

The hard shell spreads out the hit over a wider area,

while the padding absorbs the energy.

Now, the helmet might break, but your head shouldn't.

(static hisses) - Take a look.

This is all that's left

of a 12-year-old boy's bicycle helmet

after he was hit by a pickup truck.

Zach has a few scrapes and bumps,

but luckily, those are his only injuries.

(static hisses)

- [Zak] But this doesn't necessarily protect your brain

from concussions or traumatic brain injuries.

- Over a 10-year period,

we had five of our trainees, PhD postdocs,

in car versus bike accidents.

Two had to abandon neuroscience

because of the degree of brain injury.

I'm not a bike rider,

but I looked at their helmets,

and I just said, "They're missing something."

- In our last episode,

we talked about what happens to your brain

during a concussion.

The force of the impact pushes your brain into your skull,

which has some sharp bridges that can damage the brain,

but a hit to the side of the head is even more dangerous.

Just look at a boxing match.

- When you see some person,

and they've been hit 50 times in the face with a jab

and then their opposing a fighter sneaks in

or hits 'em in the jaw, their head spins, and they collapse.

- [Zak] And that's because you put a torque

to the brain,

and the brain just can't stand torque.

The rotational force can cause fibers in your brain

known as axons to stretch or even tear.

- [Bob] The axons basically are the equivalent

of wires connecting one cell's juice

to another cell's juice.

- You really don't want those permanently damaged

because when they break,

you're losing basic brain function.

So Bob wanted to design a helmet

that was better at protecting the brain

from rotational forces.

So he created a simple prototype.

- We started with a concept,

simply two salad bowls connected,

and you can see the inner salad bowl doesn't move.

The outer one does,

and when you're here hit,

the force gets diminished

from going into the internal salad bowl.

So your salad's still fine,

in this case, your brain,

- The end result?

A two layered helmet

where the outside twists to absorb side impacts.

This limits the rotating force on the brain

and results in less damage.

(machine beeps and hisses) (helmet thuds)

It's been tested with direct impacts

and those particularly dangerous hits from the side.

(weight thuds)

On average, it reduces rotational forces to the brain

by 35 to 40%.

We even gave one of his older prototypes a try,

and it works pretty well.

The foam inside the helmet matters too.

Here on the left,

you have the conventional helmet foam,

and it sends the ball bouncing.

And on the right, you have the energy-absorbing foam

used in Bob's helmet.

See how the ball doesn't bounce?

That's because the force has been dissipated.

Bob's helmet uses this foam to absorb the impact better.

Right now, the foam is used in his football helmets,

but eventually, it may be used in other versions,

which could help reduce vibrations,

like if you're riding your bike on a bumpy dirt road.

- We have it for football.

We have it for hockey.

We have it for bike, including e-bike.

One big use of it is now construction helmets,

so it's a universal design.

- Now the helmet isn't available to purchase just yet,

but we've got a link to the BrainGuard website

in the video description

so you can track its release.

Thanks to this new design,

head protection is getting a serious upgrade.

And this is all good news

because this is what your brain looks like

during a concussion.

When we first posted this video,

a lot of people were skeptical,

so we talked with Bob about it,

and he walked us through what actually happens

to your brain during a concussion.

You can watch our video with him here,

and also be sure to subscribe

so you don't miss any of our next episodes.