This is bird note.

When woodpeckers drum, they slam their beaks against bark many times per second.

Scientists have long hypothesized that woodpeckers have a way of protecting their brains from injury.

Maybe the spongy bone in woodpecker heads or their incredibly long tongues that wrap around the back of their skulls could help soften the blow.

However, more recent work provides a different picture.

High-speed cameras allowed scientists to measure the physics of woodpecking. The results indicated that woodpeckers aren't

softening the impacts to their skulls.

And there's a simple reason why.

If their skulls had a shock absorber,

they wouldn't be as good at hammering.

So woodpeckers could suffer brain injuries over time and indeed

researchers have found signs of cellular damage in woodpecker brains, but they could be protected in other ways.

The small size of their brains and how they're positioned in the skull could help avoid the

pressure on the brain that causes concussions.

And ongoing research seeks to reveal whether Woodpecker brains have a way of repairing

cellular damage over time.

This could even shed light on how we might help people

with chronic brain damage.

For Bird Note, I'm Ariana Rimmel.