Citation

Svensson MY, Aldman B, Hansson HA, Loevsund P, Seeman T, Suneson A, Oertengren T. Proc. IRCOBI 1993; 21: 189-200.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1993, International Research Council on Biomechanics of Injury)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The motion of the head and neck that occurs during a rear end collision when the impacted vehicle accelerates and the torso is pushed forwards by the seat back is defined as whiplash extension motion. Anesthetized pigs were exposed to a swift extension- flexion motion of the neck while the pressure inside the spinal canal and the skull was measured. Plasma membrane dysfunction was indicated by the results from light microscopic analyses of the cervical and the three upper thoracic spinal ganglia revealing the staining of the nerve cells and satellite cells by protein complexed to the Evans Blue dye. The results verify a hypothesis by Aldman predicting that the volume changes inside the spinal canal during an extension-flexion motion of the cervical spine would result in transient pressure changes in the central nervous system during a swift head-neck motion in the sagittal plane. Aldman also hypothesized that these pressure effects could induce injurious mechanical loads to the tissues inside the intervertebral foramina, and this agrees well with the histopathological findings of the present study.