They're having markedly different seasons but in the last month the football teams at the University of Pittsburgh, Penn State and West Virginia shared a common problem -- each of their quarterbacks suffered a concussion.

The head injuries suffered by Pitt's Bill Stull, WVU's Pat White and Penn State's Daryll Clark are an inescapable product of a violent game, but they're also very dangerous. That's why researchers and equipment manufacturers are going all-out to build a better helmet.

When White returned to the field 11 days after his injury and threw three touchdown passes to lead the Mountaineers to a 34-17 victory over Auburn on Oct. 23, he was wearing a newly delivered, painted and fitted Schutt Sports ION 4D, the latest generation of technologically advanced helmets.

The helmet has a new faceguard design featuring shock-absorbing "energy wedges" and impact-absorbing and heat-managing cushioning. Earlier this year, the helmet won the Best New Sports Equipment and Apparel category and the Best in Show Award at the 2008 National Athletic Trainers Association Convention in St. Louis.

Dan Nehlen, WVU's director of football equipment, likes the new helmet -- most WVU players wear other Schutt models with similar technology -- but he is a realist.

"Sometimes it doesn't matter what kind of helmet you're wearing. You're going to get dinged," he said. The laws of physics will always trump technological advances when it comes to concussions.

A concussion is caused by a traumatic force to the head or upper body that causes the brain to shake inside the skull. Symptoms may include disorientation, confusion, dizziness, amnesia, uncoordinated hand-eye movements and sometimes unconsciousness. Severe concussions can lead to brain swelling, cell and blood vessel damage and even death.

No helmet can absolutely prevent concussions. As advanced as the Schutt ION 4D helmet may be, that's the very model PSU's Clark was wearing when he suffered his concussion in the Nittany Lions' 13-7 victory at Ohio State on Oct. 25.

Clark hasn't yet missed a full game because Penn State was off yesterday. Stull, who was injured in the Oct. 25 loss to Rutgers, did not play against Notre Dame yesterday.

Dr. Micky Collins, assistant director of the 8-year-old, UPMC Sports Medicine Concussion Program, cautioned that returning concussed athletes to contact sports before they are completely recovered, even with a new shock-absorbing helmet, increases the risk of permanent brain injury.

"No helmet will ever prevent concussions." Dr. Collins said. "A helmet's job is really to prevent catastrophic brain injury, and they do a superior job in preventing bleeding, fractures, intercranial swelling.

"What they have a hard time doing is preventing the shaking inside the skull. We think that, hopefully over time, helmets will mitigate the number and severity of concussions."

Rob Blanc, head athletic trainer at Pitt, said "the speed of the game, the velocity of the hits," has made development of better football headgear essential. The goal of the new-style helmets is to "dissipate those forces, spread them out, direct them away from the head itself."

About 10 percent of all athletes involved in contact sports such as football, hockey and soccer suffer at least one concussion each season, according to UPMC's concussion program. Some estimates are as high as 19 percent, but the exact number is difficult to determine because many mild concussions go undiagnosed and unreported.

Altogether, an estimated 1.4 million to 3.6 million sports- and recreation-related concussions occur each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Brad Caldwell, Penn State's equipment manager, said about a dozen of PSU's players now wear the ION 4D -- some players participated in field tests last season -- and the rest of the team wears Schutt's DNA Pro, which has many of the ION's cushioning properties.

Still, he noted, "no helmet is concussion-proof....With the speed and impact of the players now, something is going to get rattled regardless of the helmet."

Given what's known today about head injuries in football, it may be hard to believe that in the earliest days of the game, in the 1860s, a bandana was usually the only "protection" a player might wear on his head.

Some sources claim the football helmet was invented in 1893 by Navy Midshipman Joseph M. Reeves, who had been told by a doctor he would be risking death or "instant insanity" if he took another kick to the head.

Mr. Reeves, who went on to become an admiral and the "Father of Carrier Aviation," had an Annapolis shoemaker create a protective device for his head made out of moleskin to allow him to play in the 1893 Army-Navy game.

Other sources credit Lafayette College halfback George Barclay with inventing the football helmet in 1896. He designed one that was held to his head by three leather straps fashioned by a harness maker.

From the 1920s through the 1940s helmets were made of leather. In the late 1940s, the leather helmet gradually was replaced by early plastics. But because many of them shattered, causing injury, the leather helmet was still used into the early 1950s.

The introduction of polymers brought the use of leather helmets to an end. Around this time, the face mask became popular, reducing the number of broken noses and teeth.

In 2002, equipment manufacturer Riddell Sports Inc. introduced its Riddell Revolution football helmet, lauding it as the first major helmet innovation in 25 years. Since then, Riddell said, more than half a million youth, high school, college and pro players have worn the Riddell Revolution.

Tim Enright, Pitt's director of equipment services, said the Panthers are about evenly split between favoring the Schutt XP helmet and the Riddell Revolution. And some Pitt players are field testing the next generation of a Riddell helmet that is not yet on the market, he added.

The Riddell Revolution was developed with the intent of reducing the likelihood of concussions. Among other things, tests found that there was a need for protection from side-impact hits.

A three-year study by UPMC's sports concussion program involving more than 2,000 players at 17 Western Pennsylvania high schools determined that the Revolution's newer helmet technology and design might reduce the number of concussions.

Published in the February 2006 edition of the scientific journal Neurosurgery, the study showed that annual concussion rates in players who wore the Riddell Revolution helmet was 5.4 percent, and those wearing standard models designed earlier by Riddell and others was 7.6 percent.

In terms of risk, those who wore the Revolution were 31 percent less likely to get a concussion than those who wore standard helmets. It was the first such study using on-the-field data.

Despite equipment advances, the number of concussions has been increasing, which Dr. Collins attributes to more being diagnosed and reported than ever before. Athletic trainers and coaches are more aware of the problem as are athletes themselves, who far too often wouldn't reveal they were having concussion symptoms for fear of being taken out of a game.

"I think we're seeing an increase in the diagnosis of concussions given better awareness and education about the problem," he said.

The key to dealing with the problem of concussions doesn't rest with equipment but with education, research and medical management, he said.

Research has shown that until a concussed brain is completely healed, it is likely vulnerable to further injury. Adolescents take longer to heal than older athletes, Dr. Collins said, with 80 percent of young players able to return to the field in three weeks.

"When you have a concussion, you shouldn't think about a better helmet but about seeing a doctor and having it managed right," he said. "We've developed tools to better manage concussions when they occur.

"There have been tremendous advances in understanding how to manage this injury."

Rest, both cognitive and physical, is the prescription for recovery. Chief among the tools to determine when recovery is complete is Immediate Post-concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing, known as ImPACT, developed by sports concussion researcher Dr. Mark Lovell, now director of UPMC's concussion program.

The test is the first and most widely used computerized evaluation system to objectively assess the effects and severity of a concussion. That's important because some physical effects don't show up on a CT scan or MRI.

The system involves athletes taking a 20-minute computerized test before the season to provide a baseline measure of brain processing, speed, memory and visual motor skills. If a concussion is suffered during the season, the athlete is retested, helping determine when it's safe to return to the field. Other criteria for a return to action include being symptom free at rest and when cognitively and physical engaged.

After that, they can strap back on their technologically advanced helmet with hopes of not getting their bell rung again.