title: Biofidelic white matter heterogeneity decreases computational model predictions of white matter strains during rapid head rotations.
abstract: The finite element (FE) brain model is used increasingly as a design tool for developing technology to mitigate traumatic brain injury. We developed an ultra high-definition FE brain model (>4 million elements) from CT and MRI scans of a 2-month-old pre-adolescent piglet brain, and simulated rapid head rotations. Strain distributions in the thalamus, coronal radiata, corpus callosum, cerebral cortex gray matter, brainstem and cerebellum were evaluated to determine the influence of employing homogeneous brain moduli, or distinct experimentally derived gray and white matter property representations, where some white matter regions are stiffer and others less stiff than gray matter. We find that constitutive heterogeneity significantly lowers white matter deformations in all regions compared with homogeneous properties, and should be incorporated in FE model injury prediction.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine , The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania , Philadelphia , PA , USA.
authors.forename: Matthew R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Maltese
authors.affiliation: b Department of Bioengineering , The University of Pennsylvania , Philadelphia , PA , USA.
authors.forename: Susan S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Margulies
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000648:ultrastructure; D003198:Computer Simulation; D066128:Gray Matter / Q000648:ultrastructure; D006257:Head / Q000502:physiology*; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D016014:Linear Models; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008954:Models, Biological; D012399:Rotation; D013552:Swine; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D066127:White Matter / Q000648:ultrastructure*
keywords: Biomechanics; computational model; traumatic brain injury