Reanalysis of Monkey Head Concussion Experiment Data Using a Novel Monkey Finite Element Model to Develop Brain Tissue Injury Reference Values

Journal article, 2012

A new method has been applied to develop a Finite Element (FE) model of the head‐ neck complex of Macaque monkey from medical images. The skull, brain and flesh have been validated based on tissue and component experimental data from literature. The kinematics of the head during occipital impacts have been validated against a sub‐set of head impact experiments carried out in the past at the Japan Automobile Research Institute (JARI). The validated model has been used to simulate 19 occipital impacts case‐by‐case. The correlation between obtained peak values for a number of mechanical parameters of the different brain regions and the occurrence of concussion in the experiments was analysed. Maximum principal strain in the brainstem showed significant correlation to concussion; 21% strain was associated with a probability of 50% risk for concussion. The developed model and the presented results constitute the first step towards the development of a tissue level injury criterion for humans that is based on experimental animal data.