The Modeling Study of the Cavitation Effect in Brain Tissue during the Brain Deceleration Impact / 中国医学物理学杂志

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Set up a new technique to reproduce the cavitation effect in the process of brain deceleration impact Methods: A transparent physical brain model with tiny air bubbles was built and loaded on an upright brain deceleration impacting moveable platform. Then, in the high strength lighting circumstance, the moveable platform was made to free fall from a height of 40cm and impacted on a fixed platform, and the whole deceleration impacting process was recorded by a high-speed video camera. Using the serial pictures analysing software, the volume and mean pressure change of the air bubbles were calculated and the cavitation effect of the brain tissue during the impact was studied. Results: The volume of the air bubble in the contrecoup site increased obviously in the impacting process, the volume of the air bubble in the coup site decreased in the impacting process and the volume change of the air bubble in the middle site was not evident enough in the impacting process. Conclusion: The results proved the negative pressure and the cavitation phenomenon in the contrecoup site. The experiments explicitly and directly showed the cavitation effect in the contrecoup site during the decelerating impact It was helpful to better understand the distribution characters of the dynamic stress of the brain tissue in the brain decelerating impact in a certain extent, and it could also provide some methods and experimental foundation to clarify the mechanical mechanism of the brain contrecoup injury which was often taken place in traffic accidental injury. Besides, the methods were of significance to research the biomechanism, diagnosis and prevention of the brain deceleration impacting injury.