When Brown linebacker and tri-captain Eric Brewer showed symptoms of a concussion after the exceptionally hard-hitting Harvard game on Sept. 22, Russ Fiore, Brown’s head athletic trainer, conducted the standard tests and determined that Brewer had, indeed, suffered a concussion.

Later, Fiore opened a black case about the size of a piece of carry-on luggage, flipped open a laptop computer cushioned within the case, plugged the device in a wall outlet, turned on the computer and with a few clicks of the mouse looked at the hits Brewer gave to and received from the Crimson.

Fiore wasn’t viewing a game tape. He was checking the Hit Analyzer, a bar graph depicting the exact time and G force of every collision Brewer experienced in that game and a small window containing the form of a head with yellow arrows pointing directly to the spot of every hit. With that information, Fiore concluded that Brewer had been involved in some big hits, but he could not use that information alone for a definitive diagnosis.

Concussion is a hot topic from high school sports to the NFL at this time, and Brown is one of three colleges involved in a recently launched five-year study to learn more about that head injury.

“The goal is to understand the biomechanics of concussion,” said Joseph J. “Trey” Crisco III, a bioengineer in the Department of Orthopaedics at Brown Medical School and Rhode Island Hospital.

Crisco, who played football as an undergraduate at Amherst, and Richard M. Greenwald invented the Head Impact Telemetry (HIT) System that employs six sensors in football helmet padding to measure the force of hits to the head and transmit the data to a computer positioned within 200 yards of the practice or game field. The technology has been in use since 2004, and last month, Simbex, the company Greenwald founded in Lebanon, N.H., received a $3.6-million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study concussions.

Dartmouth and Virginia Tech and associated medical schools are also involved.

Sixty-five Brown football players are wearing the sensor-equipped helmets this season. Fiore tried to divide them evenly among classes and between offense and defense. Simbex has licensed the technology to Riddell, the helmet manufacturer, and it is being marketed as the Riddell Sideline Response System. The University of North Carolina and the University of Oklahoma are using it to collect data for their own use. The cost is about $1,000 per helmet, and the NIH grant is paying for the gear in use at Brown.

Fiore, long fascinated by innovative methods and product development, is like a kid with the latest video game when demonstrating this system.

“It’s great,” he said as he showed it to me in the Brown training room yesterday. “It’s a beautiful system, but it could have a couple of enhancements that would be useful for an athletic trainer.”

He uploads his data to Simbex every day and meets with engineers every Monday to discuss the project.

The device lists the Daily Top 10 Hits, which Fiore reviews. Then he speaks to the players involved to find out how they are doing. So far, the biggest hitters on the team are fine.

“Some kids who hit the hardest have not had a concussion. Some kids who have had smaller hits have had concussions,” he said. “Some people can take a hard hit. Some people are more susceptible. We don’t know why.”

Crisco agreed.

“There are definitely guys who can deliver a huge hit and come up no problem. Other guys get hit and you say, ‘Oh, that wasn’t that bad,’ and ‘they’re out cold,’ ” he said.

Crisco wants to learn if linear, or straight-on, hits or rotational, or twisting, hits, are more likely to result in a concussion, what the variance is between one athlete and another and why athletes who have had one concussion are prone to a second or third.

“Is your head in the wrong place at the wrong time, or does your tolerance decrease?” he said.

The HIT System measures G forces from 20-160. Fiore uses 98 as a threshold.

“That’s a pretty good hit,” he said.

And 160?

“That’s a very hard hit. That’s when the crowd goes, ‘Wow!’ ”

Fiore said Crisco is working on software that will allow a viewer to observe game action and the Hit Analyzer simultaneously with the hope of better understanding what type of hit and produces injury.

Crisco also wants to study concussion in women and hopes to outfit helmets for male and female ice hockey players next year.

“We’re lucky to have this, and I think they’re happy to have us as one of their research institutions because they’ll get good feedback,” Fiore said. “I love doing this stuff. It’s right up there. David (Murray) and I do football, and we’re happy to be part of the study. It’s extra work, but in the long run it will pay off.”

And it might help linebackers like Eric Brewer understand why they suffered a concussion and had to stand on the sideline in T-shirt and shorts while their teammates battled the University of Rhode Island in the annual Governor’s Cup game.

mszostak@projo.com