Cerebral vascular strains in dynamic head impact using an upgraded model with brain material property heterogeneity. (February 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Zhao, Wei; Ji, Songbai
• Is Part Of: Journal of the mechanical behavior of biomedical materials. Volume 126(2022)
• Publication Date: 2022-02
• Subjects: Cerebral vascular injury -- Traumatic brain injury -- Concussion -- Anisotropy -- Heterogeneity -- Worcester head injury model; Biomedical materials -- Periodicals; Biomedical materials -- Mechanical properties -- Periodicals; Biomedical materials; Biomedical materials -- Mechanical properties; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 610.28
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jmbbm.2021.104967
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1751-6161

Abstract

Abstract: Cerebral vascular injury (CVI) is a frequent consequence of traumatic brain injury but has often been neglected. Substantial experimental work exists on vascular material properties and failure/subfailure thresholds. However, little is known about vascular in vivo loading conditions in dynamic head impact, which is necessary to investigate the risk, severity, and extent of CVI. In this study, we resort to the Worcester Head Injury Model (WHIM) V2.1 for investigation. The model embeds the cerebral vasculature network and is further upgraded to incorporate brain material property heterogeneity based on magnetic resonance elastography. The brain material property is calibrated to match with the previously validated anisotropic V1.0 version in terms of whole-brain strains against six experimental datasets of a wide range of blunt impact conditions. The upgraded WHIM is finally used to simulate five representative real-world head impacts drawn from contact sports and automotive crashes. We find that peak strains in veins are considerably higher than those in arteries and that peak circumferential strains are also higher than peak axial strains. For a typical concussive head impact, cerebral vascular axial strains reach the lowest reported yield strain of ∼7–8%. For severe automotive impacts, axial strains could reach ∼20%, which is on the order of the lowest reported ultimate failure strain of ∼24%. These results suggest in vivo mechanical loading conditions of the cerebral vasculature (excluding bridging veins not assessed here) due to rapid head rotation are at the lower end of failure/subfailure thresholds established from ex vivo experiments. This study provides some first insight into the risk, severity, and extent of CVI in real-world head impacts. Highlights: First study to investigate human brain in vivo strains of the cerebral vasculature network in dynamic head impact. In vivo cerebral vascular strains are at the lower end of failure/subfailure ex vivo thresholds Further upgraded the Worcester Head Injury Model (WHIM) with brain material property heterogeneity The WHIM is re-calibrated and re-validated for future investigations of brain and cerebral vascular injuries