Viscoelastic properties of the rat brain in the sagittal plane:​ effects of anatomical structure and age

Finan, John D.; Elkin, Benjamin S.; Pearson, Erica M.; Kalbian, Irene L.; Morrison, III, Barclay

Affiliations

¹Neurotrauma and Repair Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, 351 Engineering Terrace, 1210 Amsterdam Avenue MC 8904, New York, NY 10027, USA

Abstract and keywords

Rat is the most commonly used animal model for the study of traumatic brain injury. Recent advances in imaging and computational modeling technology offer the promise of biomechanical models capable of resolving individual brain structures and offering greater insight into the causes and consequences of brain injury. However, there is insufficient data on the mechanical properties of brain structures available to populate these models. In this study, we used microindentation to determine viscoelastic properties of different anatomical structures in sagittal slices of juvenile and adult rat brain. We find that the rat brain is spatially heterogeneous in this anatomical plane supporting previous results in the coronal plane. In addition, the brain becomes stiffer and more heterogeneous as the animal matures. This dynamic, region-specific data will support the development of more biofidelic computational models of brain injury biomechanics and the testing of hypotheses about the manner in which different anatomical structures are injured in a head impact.

Keywords: Neurotrauma; Indentation; Relaxation function; Biomechanics; Injury

Links

DOI: 10.1007/s10439-011-0394-2

PubMed: 22012082

WoS: 000300486700006

History

Received: 2011-07-18

Accepted: 2011-08-31

Online: 2011-10-20

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Cited By (13)

Year	Entry
2015	Arbogast KB, Maltese MR. Pediatric biomechanics. In: Yoganandan N, Nahum AM, Melvin JW, eds. Accidental Injury: Biomechanics and Prevention. 3rd ed. New York: Springer; 2015:643-696.
2012	Rashid B, Destrade M, Gilchrist MD. Experimental characterisation of neural tissue at collision speeds. In: Proceedings of the 2012 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Injury. September 12-14, 2012; Dublin, Ireland.405-416.
2012	Finan JD, Pearson EM, Morrison B III. Viscoelastic properties of the rat brain in the horizontal plane. In: Proceedings of the 2012 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Injury. September 12-14, 2012; Dublin, Ireland.474-485.
2013	Lamy M, Baumgartner D, Davidsson J, Willinger R. Traumatic brain injury investigation using FE modeling of the rat and experimental high amplitude rotations in the sagittal plane. In: Proceedings of the 2013 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Injury. September 11-13, 2013; Gothenburg, Sweden.456-469.
2014	Ren L, Baumgartner D, Davidsson J, Yang J, Willinger R. Effect of the inhomogeneous brain mechanical characteristic on dynamic responses of head under trauma. In: Proceedings of the 2014 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Injury. September 10-12, 2014; Berlin, Germany.93-105.
2020	Ghajari M, Donat CK, Lopez MY, Baxan N, Sastre M, Sharp DJ. Computational prediction of contusion and white matter injury in an animal model of traumatic brain injury. In: Proceedings of the 2020 International IRCOBI Asia Conference on the Biomechanics of Injury. 2020; Beijing, China.134-136.
2016	Antona-Makoshi J. Traumatic Brain Injuries: Animal Experiments and Numerical Simulations to Support the Development of a Brain Injury Criterion [PhD thesis]. Götenburg, Sweden: Chalmers University of Technology; 2016.
2015	Kang WH. Reducing the Societal Costs of Traumatic Brain Injury: Astrocyte-Based Therapeutics and Functional Injury Tolerance of the Living Brain [PhD thesis]. Columbia University; 2015.
2015	Wood GW. Interspecies Scaling in Blast Neurotrauma [PhD thesis]. Duke University; 2015.
2020	Schumm SN. Computational Investigations of Neuronal Network Responses to Traumatic Brain Injury [PhD thesis]. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania; 2020.
2019	Alshareef AA. Deformation of the Human Brain Under Rotational Loading [PhD thesis]. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia; May 2019.
2015	Singh D. Investigation of Primary Blast Injury and Protection Using Sagittal and Transverse Finite Element Head Models [Master's thesis]. University of Waterloo; 2015.
2020	Zhou R. Development of Rat Head Finite Element Model and Tissue Level Biomechanical Threshold for Traumatic Axonal Injury [PhD thesis]. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University; May 2020.