LINCOLN, Neb. -- If all goes according to Dennis Molfese's plan, the day is coming when a football player who takes a hit to the head will come to the sideline, take off his helmet and slip on an electrode-covered mesh cap.

The team's medical staff will analyze the player's brain waves on the spot and determine within minutes whether he can safely return to the game or whether he has sustained a concussion and, if so, how severe.

In development is an electrode-covered mesh cap that would allow medical staffs to determine within 10 minutes if a player has sustained a concussion. AP Photo/Nati Harnik

Putting the finishing touches on that device is among the projects planned in the University of Nebraska's Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior, which opens this month in Memorial Stadium's newly expanded east side.

CB3, as it's called, is housed in the same $55 million structure that holds 38 luxury suites and an additional 6,000 seats for the football stadium. The center is one of a number of university-affiliated research centers across the nation looking for better ways to diagnose and treat traumatic head injuries and make football and other sports safer.

"There has been great concussion research that's been going on for decades," said Molfese, the CB3 director. "It's disconcerting to realize just how little we really know."

CB3's main attraction is a type of magnetic resonance imaging machine -- known as a functional MRI -- that tracks the brain's blood flow. It's hoped the $3 million scanner helps in the effort to better define what is and is not a concussion.

"There's no question it's going to move the dial forward," NCAA chief medical officer Brian Hainline said. "The big, hoped-for dream would be, let's have a biomarker in brain imaging. If you're to the left of that, you're safe; if you're to the right of it, you're not. That's probably a few years out. But functional brain imaging and blood flow are going to be a very important part of that."

The MRI machine also can be used on game days to assess injuries of all kinds.