Citation

Hua Y, Lin S, Gu L. Comput. Math. Methods Med. 2015; 2015: e928236.

Affiliation

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0656, USA ; Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience, Lincoln, NE 68588-0656, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Hindawi Publishing)

DOI

10.1155/2015/928236

PMID

26495036

PMCID

PMC4606104

Abstract

Cerebral vasculature is a complex network that circulates blood through the brain. However, the role of this networking effect in brain dynamics has seldom been inspected. This work is to study the effects of blood vessel networks on dynamic responses of the brain under blast loading. Voronoi tessellations were implemented to represent the network of blood vessels in the brain. The brain dynamics in terms of maximum principal strain (MPS), shear strain (SS), and intracranial pressure (ICP) were monitored and compared.

RESULTS show that blood vessel networks significantly affected brain responses. The increased MPS and SS were observed within the brain embedded with vessel networks, which did not exist in the case without blood vessel networks. It is interesting to observe that the alternation of the ICP response was minimal. Moreover, the vessel diameter and density also affected brain dynamics in both MPS and SS measures. This work sheds light on the role of cerebral vasculature in blast-induced traumatic brain injury.

Language: en