3D Brain Deformation in Cadaveric Specimens Compared to Healthy Volunteers Under Non-injurious Loading Conditions

Measurements of how the brain deforms in response to head impact are often obtained in human cadavers because loading conditions can be investigated that are on the order of those that could lead to injury. How the deformation response of the postmortem human brain differs from the live human brain remains unanswered. In this study, we used tagged magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure brain deformation in two human cadavers in response to non-injurious head impact. We then compared these strain fields to those obtained in 10 healthy volunteers (HV) during the same neck rotation under similar loading conditions. Our results showed a number of similarities, such as a similar magnitude of the largest maximum principal strain values and high values within the cortex, and some differences, such as high strain concentrations near the falx, lower median strain values at each time point, and an increased frequency of oscillation in cadavers. These initial results provide insight into potential differences in the deformation response of the brain in cadavers compared to HVs, though additional experiments are needed to further investigate the effect of age and atrophy on the deformation response.