Traumatic brain injury remains a serious issue in the United States despite a large research effort over the years. Uncertainty regarding injury mechanisms and cascades drives the current study, which seeks to address many unknowns. The first phase of this study focuses on determining a direct relationship between metabolites via magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and axonal damage assessed by immunohistochemistry in a Göttingen minipig in vivo model. Two injury devices were designed and fabricated. One imparts rotational acceleration in the median plane while the other imparts purely translation acceleration. The animals (n=15) undergo baseline 7T MR scans prior to injury, immediately post-injury, and twenty-four hours post injury. MRS is performed within ~200 mm3 voxel placed in the genu of the corpus callosum. Relevant metabolites include glutamate, N-acetylaspartate, myoInositol, creatine, and lactate. No clear trends were found for any of the metabolites for either time point for these few tests. Further testing is being conducted to see the meaning of the metabolite differences in terms of underlying damage characterized by immunohistochemistry. This work will be adapted to characterize longitudinal TBI development. High-speed biplane x-ray studies looking at head kinematics, brain response, intracranial pressure, and brain injury will support the development of an FE model of the minipig head. Once validated, the model can be used to scale graded injury metrics for prediction of brain injury in the human. Ultimately, a new head injury criterion will be developed for better prediction of the potential for traumatic brain injury.