Swedish company MIPS is on a mission to make your brain safer. MIPS stands for Multi-directional Impact Protection System and represent the unique impact reducing technology licensed by MIPS to helmet makers for various sports.
Conventional helmets are tested by dropping them vertically onto a flat surface. In reality though, your head hits the ground at an angle when you fall, creating a rotation in the brain, which in turn causes major damage. A helmet equipped with MIPS will absorb much of that damaging rotation, offering you radically better protection.
The secret behind MIPS' unique patented technology is that it imitates the brain's own way of protecting itself. The brain rests in the skull surrounded by a low-friction cushion of cerebrospinal fluid. This fluid allows the brain to slide on impact, reducing the energy transferred from the skull to the brain. MIPS technology mimics this natural brain cushion by giving the helmet its own low-friction layer between the outer shell and the inner liner. During a fall, this middle layer allows the outer shell to slide, greatly reducing the amount of impact energy transferred to the inner part of the helmet and thus your head.
MIPS technology was developed by some of the world's leading researchers in biomechanics and neuroscience at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. You can see above the difference in brain impact (red is bad) for a rider wearing a normal helmet (left) and a helmet equipped with MIPS technology (right). So be on the lookout for helmets with the round yellow MIPS logo.