Brain Strain from Motion of Sparse Markers

Brain strain secondary to head impact or inertial loading is closely associated with pathologic observations in the brain. The only experimental brain strain dataset under loadings close to traumatic levels was calculated by imposing the experimentally measured motion of markers embedded in the brain to an auxiliary model formed by triad elements (Hardy et al., 2007). However, fidelity of the calculated strain as well as the suitability of using triad elements for three-dimensional (3D) strain estimation remains to be verified. Therefore, this study proposes to use tetrahedron elements as a new approach to estimate the brain strain. Fidelity of this newly-proposed approach along with the previous triad-based approach is evaluated with the aid of three independently-developed finite element (FE) head models by numerically replicating the experimental impacts and strain estimation procedures. Strain in the preselected brain elements obtained from the whole head simulation exhibits good correlation with its tetra estimation and exceeds its triad estimation, indicating that the tetra approach more accurately estimates the strain in the preselected region. The newly calculated brain strain curves using tetra elements provide better approximations for the 3D experimental brain deformation and can be used for strain validation of FE models of human head.