animal studies; Finite element model; military injury; rat
Abstract :
[en] Blast waves generated by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) cause traumatic brain injury (TBI) in soldiers and civilians. In vivo animal models that use shock tubes are extensively used in laboratories to simulate field conditions, to identify mechanisms of injury, and to develop injury thresholds. In this article, we place rats in different locations along the length of the shock tube (i.e., inside, outside, and near the exit), to examine the role of animal placement location (APL) in the biomechanical load experienced by the animal. We found that the biomechanical load on the brain and internal organs in the thoracic cavity (lungs and heart) varied significantly depending on the APL. When the specimen is positioned outside, organs in the thoracic cavity experience a higher pressure for a longer duration, in contrast to APL inside the shock tube. This in turn will possibly alter the injury type, severity, and lethality. We found that the optimal APL is where the Friedlander waveform is first formed inside the shock tube. Once the optimal APL was determined, the effect of the incident blast intensity on the surface and intracranial pressure was measured and analyzed. Noticeably, surface and intracranial pressure increases linearly with the incident peak overpressures, though surface pressures are significantly higher than the other two. Further, we developed and validated an anatomically accurate finite element model of the rat head. With this model, we determined that the main pathway of pressure transmission to the brain was through the skull and not through the snout; however, the snout plays a secondary role in diffracting the incoming blast wave towards the skull.
Disciplines :
Physical, chemical, mathematical & earth Sciences: Multidisciplinary, general & others
Author, co-author :
Sundaramurthy, Aravind
Alai, Aaron
Ganpule, Shailesh
Holmberg, Aaron
Plougonven, Erwan ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Department of Chemical Engineering > PEPs (Product, Environment, Processes)
Chandra, Namas
Language :
English
Title :
Blast-induced biomechanical loading of the rat: An experimental and anatomically accurate computational blast injury model
Abdul-Wahab, R., Swietek, B., Mina, S., Sampath, S., Santhakumar, V., and Pfister, B. J. (2011). Precisely controllable traumatic brain injury devices for rodent models, in: Bioengineering Conference (NEBEC), 2011 IEEE 37th Annual Northeast, pps. 1-2.
Ahlers, S. T., Vasserman-Stokes, E., Shaughness, M. C., Hall, A. A., Shear, D. A., Chavko, M., McCarron, R. M., and Stone, J. R. (2012). Assessment of the effects of acute and repeated exposure to blast overpressure in rodents: Towards a greater understanding of blast and the potential ramifications for injury in humans exposed to blast. Front. Neurol. 3.
Alley, M. D., Schimizze, B. R., and Son, S. F. (2011). Experimental modeling of explosive blast-related traumatic brain injuries. NeuroImage 54, S45-S54.
Anderson, J. (2001). Fundamentals of Aerodynamics. McGraw-Hill: New York.
Bass, C. R., Rafaels, K. A., and Salzar, R. S. (2008). Pulmonary injury risk assessment for short-duration blasts. J Trauma Acute Care Surg. 65, 604-615 610.1097/TA.1090b1013e3181454ab31 81454.
Bolander, R., Mathie, B., Bir, C., Ritzel, D., and Van de Vord, P. (2011). Skull flexure as a contributing factor in the mechanism of injury in the rat when exposed to a shock wave. Ann. Biomed. Engineering 1-10.
Cernak, I. (2005). Animal models of head trauma. NeuroRX 2, 410-422. (Pubitemid 41444875)
Cernak, I., Merkle, A. C., Koliatsos. V. E., Bilik, J. M., Luong, Q. T., Mahota, T. M., Xu, L., Slack, N., Windle, D., and Ahmed, F. A. (2011). The pathobiology of blast injuries and blast-induced neurotrauma as identified using a new experimental model of injury in mice. Neurobiol. Dis. 41, 538-551.
Cernak, I., Wang, Z., Jiang, J., Bian, X., and Savic, J. (2001). Cognitive deficits following blast injury-induced neurotrauma: possible involvement of nitric oxide. Brain Inj. 15, 593-612. (Pubitemid 32640293)
Chandra, N., Holmberg, A., and Feng, R. (2011). Controlling the shape of the shockwave profile in a blast facility. Patent USP (ed).
Chang, K. S., and Kim, J. K. (1995). Numerical investigation of inviscid shock-wave dynamics in an expansion tube. Shock Waves 5, 33-45.
Chavko, M., Koller, W. A., Prusaczyk, W. K., and McCarron, R. M. (2007). Measurement of blast wave by a miniature fiber optic pressure transducer in the rat brain. J Neurosci. Methods 159, 277-281. (Pubitemid 44908659)
Chavko, M., Watanabe, T., Adeeb, S., Lankasky, J., Ahlers, S. T., and McCarron, R. M. (2011). Relationship between orientation to a blast and pressure wave propagation inside the rat brain. J. Neurosci. Methods 195, 61-66.
Cheng, J., Gu, J., Ma, Y., Yang, T., Kuang, Y., Li, B., and Kang, J. (2010). Development of a rat model for studying blast-induced traumatic brain injury. J. Neurological Sci. 294, 23-28.
DePalma, R. G., and Burris, D. G., Champion, H. R., and Hodgson, M. J. (2005). Blast injuries. N. Engl. J. Med. 352, 1335-1342.
Desmoulin, G. T., and Dionne, J.-P. (2009). Blast-induced neurotrauma: Surrogate use, loading mechanisms, and cellular responses. J. Trauma 67, 1113-1122 1110.1097/TA.1110b1013e31 81bb1118e1184.
Ganpule, S., Gu, L., Alai, A., and Chandra, N. (2011). Role of helmet in the mechanics of shock wave propagation under blast loading conditions. Comput. Methods Biomechanics Biomed. Engineering 1-12.
Grujicic, M., Bell, W., Pandurangan, B., and Glomski, P. (2011). Fluid/structure interaction computational investigation of blast-wave mitigation efficacy of the advanced combat helmet. J. Materials Engineering Performance 20, 877-893.
Haselbacher, A., Balachandar, S., and Kieffer, S. W. (2007). Openended shock tube flows: Influence of pressure ratio and diaphragm position. AIAA J. 45, 1917-1929. (Pubitemid 47436970)
Honma, H., Ishihara, M., Yoshimura, T., Maeno, K., and Morioka, T. (2003). Interferometric CT measurement of three-dimensional flow phenomena on shock waves and vortices discharged from open ends. Shock Waves 13, 179-190. (Pubitemid 37416877)
Jiang, Z., Onodera, O., and Takayama, K. (1999). Evolution of shock waves and the primary vortex loop discharged from a square cross-sectional tube. Shock Waves 9, 1-10.
Jiang, Z., Takayama, K., and Skews, B. W. (1998). Numerical study on blast flowfields induced by supersonic projectiles discharged from shock tubes. Physics Fluids 10, 277-288. (Pubitemid 128640315)
Kleinschmit, N. N. (2011). A shock tube technique for blast wave simulation and studies of flow structure interactions in shock tube blast experiments [Master's thesis]. Lincoln: Engineering Mechanics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; 2011.
Leonardi, A. D., Bir, C. A., Ritzel, D. V., and Van de Vord, P. J. (2011). Intracranial pressure increases during exposure to a shock wave. J. Neurotrauma 28, 85-94.
Long, J. B., Bentley, T. L., Wessner, K. A., Cerone, C., Sweeney, S., and Bauman, R. A. (2009). Blast overpressure in rats: Recreating a battlefield injury in the laboratory. J. Neurotrauma 26, 827-840.
Moore, D. F., Jérusalem, A., Nyein, M., Noels, L., Jaffee, M. S., and Radovitzky, R. A. (2009). Computational biology-Modeling of primary blast effects on the central nervous system. NeuroImage 47, (Suppl. 2): T10-T20.
Moore, D. F., Radovitzky, R. A., Shupenko, L., Klinoff, A., Jaffee, M. S., and Rosen, J. M. (2008). Blast physics and central nervous system injury. Future Neurol. 3, 243-250. (Pubitemid 351715769)
Moss, W. C., King, M. J., and Blackman, E. G. (2009). Skull flexure from blast waves: A mechanism for brain injury with implications for helmet design. Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 108702.
Nyein, M. K., Jason, A. M., Yu, L., Pita, C. M., Joannopoulos, J. D., Moore, D. F., and Radovitzky, R. A. (2011). In silico investigation of intracranial blast mitigation with relevance to military traumatic brain injury (vol 107, pg 20703, 2010). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 108, 433-433.
Okie, S. (2005). Traumatic brain injury in the war zone. N. Engl. J. Med. 352, 2043-2047. (Pubitemid 40664304)
Peña, A., Pickard, J. D., Stiller, D., Harris, N. G., and Schuhmann, M. U. (2005). Brain tissue biomechanics in cortical contusion injury: a finite element analysis. Acta Neurochir. Suppl. 95, 333-336.
Rafaels, K. (2010). Blast brain injury risk. (Doctoral dissertation), University of Virginia; 2010.
Readnower, R. D., Chavko, M., Adeeb, S., Conroy, M. D., Pauly, J. R., McCarron, R. M., and Sullivan, P. G. (2010). Increase in blood-brain barrier permeability, oxidative stress, and activated microglia in a rat model of blast-induced traumatic brain injury. J. Neurosci. Res. 88, 3530-3539.
Risling, M., Plantman, S., Angeria, M., Rostami, E., Bellander, B. M., Kirkegaard, M., Arborelius, U., and Davidsson, J. (2011). Mechanisms of blast induced brain injuries, experimental studies in rats. NeuroImage 54(Suppl 1), S89-S97.
Saljo, A., Bolouri, H., Mayorga, M., Svensson, B., and Hamberger, A. (2010). Low-level blast raises intracranial pressure and impairs cognitive function in rats: Prophylaxis with processed cereal feed. J. Neurotrauma 27, 383-389.
Säljö, A., Mayorga, M., Bolouri, H., Svensson, B., and Hamberger, A. (2011). Mechanisms and pathophysiology of the lowlevel blast brain injury in animal models. NeuroImage 54, S83-S88.
Svetlov, S. I., Prima, V., Kirk, D. R., Gutierrez, H., Curley, K. C., Hayes, R. L., and Wang, K. K. W. (2010). Morphologic and biochemical characterization of brain injury in a model of controlled blast overpressure exposure. J. Trauma 69, 795-804 710.1097/TA.1090b1013e3181bbd1885.
Teasdale, G., and Jennett, B. (1974). Assessment of coma and impaired consciousness: a practical scale. Lancet 304, 81-84.
Willinger, R., Kang, H.-S., and Diaw, B. (1999). Three-dimensional human head finite-element model validation against two experimental impacts. Ann. Biomed. Engineering 27, 403-410. (Pubitemid 129647581)
Zhang, L. Y., Yang, K. H., and King, A. I. (2001). Comparison of brain responses between frontal and lateral impacts by finite element modeling. J. Neurotrauma 18, 21-30. (Pubitemid 32055453)
Zhu, F., Mao, H., Dal Cengio Leonardi, A., Wagner, C., Chou, C., Jin, X., Bir, C., Vandevord, P., Yang, K. H., and King, A. I. (2010). Development of an FE model of the rat head subjected to air shock loading. Stapp Car Crash J. 54, 211-225.
