COMPUTATIONAL INVESTIGATION OF BRAIN BIOMECHANICS UNDER IMPACTS

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a significant public health concern, with ongoing research emphasizing the need to understand its complex biomechanics. Finite Element Method (FEM) models have become indispensable tools for investigating injury mechanisms, offering cost-effective and ethical alternatives to physical testing. This study develops three anatomically detailed FEM head models for adult male, adult female, and young male to explore the influence of head morphology and impact direction on tissue-level responses. Using high-resolution MRI data, these models were constructed with precise internal anatomical details, a systematic validation procedure was employed to ensure their biofidelity. Different impact conditions are simulated, while the loading conditions are generated from the widely used kinematic injury indicators (HIC and BrIC) along three anatomical axes, and also incorporating combined translational and rotational kinematics derived from experimental data. The results revealed significant differences in peak strain values (up to 46%) and spatial distributions among models, with larger heads being more vulnerable to impacts and coronal impacts inducing higher strains than sagittal and axial impacts. These findings highlight the limitations of kinematic-based indicators in capturing tissue-level injury mechanisms and underscore the importance of head morphology in strain patterns and injury risk. This study advocates for the integration of personalized, anatomically detailed FEM models and tissue-specific metrics in the design of protective equipment, such as motorcycle helmets, where current standards often fail to account for the critical effects of head morphology and strain distribution.