Intracranial Pressure Relationships in the Protected and Unprotected Head

This paper represents a continuation of previous research on closed head impact in the human cadaver and an associated mathematical model. The long term goal of the study is to describe the relationships between head impact events which might be useful in understanding what takes place in the living human. In the current study, two different sets of experiments were conducted 1) sequential impacts on a single embalmed helmeted specimen and 2) impact experiments on individual helmeted unembalmed specimens. Impact parameters and intracranial pressures were measured and discussed. A finite element model is presented which can predict the intracranial pressures throughout the brain for the first 8 msec. It is apparent that the helmet prevents high magnitude, short duration intracranial pressures and that posterior pressures develop after the, acceleration phase and helmeted impacts.