Computational neurotrauma-design, simulation, and analysis of controlled cortical impact model

The controlled cortical impact (CCI) model is widely used in many laboratories to study traumatic brain injury (TBI). Although external impact parameters during CCI tests could be clearly defined, little is known about the internal tissue-level mechanical responses of the rat brain. Furthermore, the external impact parameters tend to vary considerably among different labs making the comparison of research findings difficult if not impossible. In this study, a design of computer experiments was performed with typical external impact parameters commonly found in the literature. An anatomically detailed finite element (FE) rat brain model was used to simulate the CCI experiments to correlate external mechanical parameters (impact depth, impact velocity, impactor shape, impactor size, and craniotomy pattern) with rat brain internal responses, as predicted by the FE model. Systematic analysis of the results revealed that impact depth was the leading factor affecting the predicted brain internal responses. Interestingly, impactor shape ranked as the second most important factor, surpassing impactor diameter and velocity which were commonly reported in the literature as indicators of injury severity along with impact depth. The differences in whole brain response due to a unilateral or a bilateral craniotomy were small, but those of regional intracranial tissue stretches were large. The interaction effects of any two external parameters were not significant. This study demonstrates the potential of using numerical FE modeling to engineer better experimental TBI models in the future.