Citation

McInnes KA, Abebe Z, Whyte T, Bashir A, Barron C, Wellington C, Cripton PA. J. Biomech. Eng. 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Department of Orthopaedics and the School of Biomedical Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, American Society of Mechanical Engineers)

DOI

10.1115/1.4046202

PMID

32006027

Abstract

Mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) are typically caused by non-penetrating head impacts that accelerate the skull and result in deformation of the brain within the skull. The shear and compressive strains caused by these deformations damage neural and vascular structures and impair their function. Accurate head acceleration measurements are necessary to define the nature of the insult to the brain. A novel murine head tracking system was developed to improve the accuracy and efficiency of kinematic measurements obtained with high-speed videography. A 3d-printed marker carrier was designed for rigid fixation to the upper jaw and incisors with an elastic strap around the snout. The system was evaluated by impacting cadaveric mice with the CHIMERA system using an energy of 0.7J (5.29 m/s). We compared the performance of the head-marker system to the previously used skin-tracking method and documented significant improvements in measurement repeatability (aggregate coefficient of variation within users from 15.8 to 1.5 and between users from 15.5 to 1.5), agreement (aggregate % error from 24.9 to 8.7), and temporal response (aggregate CORA curve agreement from 0.668 to 0.941). Additionally, the new system allows for automated software tracking, which dramatically decreases the analysis time required (74% reduction). This novel head tracking system for mice offers an efficient, reliable, and real-time method to measure head kinematics during high-speed impacts using CHIMERA or other rodent or small mammal head impact models.

Copyright (c) 2020 by ASME.

Language: en