Citation

Gullotti DM, Panzer MB, Beamer M, Chen YC, Patel TP, Yu A, Jaumard N, Winkelstein B, Bass CR, Morrison B, Meaney DF. J. Biomech. Eng. 2014; 136(9): 091004.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, American Society of Mechanical Engineers)

DOI

10.1115/1.4027873

PMID

24950710

Abstract

Although blast-induced traumatic brain injury (bTBI) is well recognized for its significance in the military population, the unique mechanisms of primary bTBI remain undefined. Animate models of primary bTBI are critical for determining these potentially unique mechanisms, but the biomechanical characteristics of many bTBI models are poorly understood. In this study, we examine some common shock tube configurations used to study blast-induced brain injury in the laboratory, and define the optimal configuration to minimize the effect of torso overpressure and blast-induced head accelerations. Pressure transducers indicated that a customized animal holder successfully reduced peak torso overpressures to safe levels across all tested configurations. However, high-speed video imaging acquired during the blast showed significant head accelerations occurred when animals were oriented perpendicular to the shock tube axis. Under the same blast input conditions, minimizing head acceleration led to a corresponding elimination of righting time deficits. However, we could still achieve righting time deficits under minimal acceleration conditions by significantly increasing the peak blast overpressure. Together, these data show the importance of characterizing the effect of blast overpressure on head kinematics, with the goal of producing models focused on understanding the effects of blast overpressure on the brain without the complicating factor of superimposed head accelerations. KEYWORDS Blast, traumatic brain injury, biomechanics, acceleration, overpressure.

Language: en