"Concussion" opens in movie theaters Dec. 25 and is based on the story of Dr. Bennet Omalu, a forensic neuropathologist who was the first to discover chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a degenerative disease found in athletes and others with a history of repetitive brain trauma, including concussions.

Guenter Gross, University of North Texas Regents Professor of biology and director of UNT's Center for Network Neuroscience, is available to discuss the science of concussions, and what happens to the brain on a cellular level after single and repeated impacts.

Gross conducts in vitro cellular tests in his lab, where he uses fluorescent microscopy and electrical monitoring of neural networks with microelectrode arrays to evaluate how cells respond over time after impacts from a ballistic pendulum.

"Very little is known about what happens to a concussed brain on a cellular level, and what we're discovering is that, depending on the power of the impact, cells attempt to recover for a short phase, then begin to die or reduce their level of communication," Gross says. "We also see that internal cellular structures become rearranged depending on the power of the impact, with some impacts leading to nuclei rotating within the cell, or even breaking loose from the cell body."

Gross can be reached at Guenter.Gross@unt.edu or at 940-565-3615.