Recent Advances in Biomechanics of Brain Injury Research: A Review

Abstract

Biomechanics of cerebral trauma attempts to delineate the dynamic response of the cranial vault contents to a direct or indirect impact to the head. Consequently, brain injury mechanisms and associated tolerance to impact can be deduced by establishing a relationship between neurological deficit and mechanical dosage. The resulting information is invaluable to brain injury prevention and diagnosis. This paper presents an overview of our recent research on head injury focusing on establishing brain injury biomechanics by developing a comprehensive and validated mathematical model. To achieve our goal, we developed a comprehensive three-dimensional finite element human head model, finite element porcine head models, and sensors to monitor head kinematics and brain strains by neutral density accelerometers. The information obtained from this research thus far provided a predictive and somewhat validated mathematical model of the head, which clearly shows a correspondence between brain mechanical response and experimentally observed injuries. Key words: diffuse axonal injury; finite element analysis; human brain model; neutral density accelerometer; porcine brain model; shear strain