Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a persistent problem with an estimated 1.7 million occurrences annually in the United States, accounting for 30.5% of all injury-related deaths. This study seeks to answer many of the unknowns surrounding mild TBI regarding the mechanisms and pathogenesis involved. The current study will ultimately produce graded injury metrics to relate translational and rotational head accelerations to levels of axonal damage and predict functional outcome in patients with TBI. The first phase of this study focuses on determining a relationship between short term neuronal damage as assessed using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and immunohistochemistry (IHC) using a Göttingen minipig model. Two injury devices were designed and fabricated for this study:​ one imparts a repeatable rotational impact (combined rotation and translation), while the other imparts a repeatable purely translational impact. The minipigs undergo baseline MR scans (7T Bruker MR scanner) prior to injury, immediately post-injury, and twenty-four hours post injury, at which point the minipig brains are perfused and harvested for IHC. MRS is carried out on a voxel placed in the genu of the corpus callosum. Metabolites of interest include glutamate, N-acetylaspartate, choline, myoInositol, and lactate. To map the changes in metabolite levels seen with MRS to brain injury confirmed by IHC, two staining methods were used;​ light neurofilament, and heavy neurofilament for labeling axonal injury. The animals tested so far include:​ 1-hr survival rotation injury (n=3), 24-hr survival rotation injury (n=8), 24-hr linear injury (n=1), 1-hr survival sham control (n=1), and 24 hr survival sham controls (n=2). Preliminary results of IHC show that there is consistent neurofilament staining present in all rotationally injured animals dropped from ≥15°. Metabolite trends in these animals suggest increases in NAA and glutamate and a decrease in NAAG 24 hours after injury. Once the mapping of neuronal damage to metabolite concentration changes is completed, longitudinal development of injury can be characterized by metabolic changes observed with MRS at different time points, and related to input head kinematics. High- speed biplane x-ray studies looking at head kinematics, brain response, and brain injury will support the development of an FE model of the minipig brain. Once validated, the model can be used in conjunction with an FE model of the human head (e.g. SIMon) to scale the results and develop graded injury metrics for prediction of brain injury in the human.