Developing mathematical models for understanding the fundamental mechanics of the healthy brain under high-rate loading

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Understanding the mechanics of the healthy brain is required for developing effective protection products. In studying brain mechanics, mathematical models are critical, even essential, because the physical sensors needed to experimentally observe live-brain responses are often impossible to properly instrument and calibrate, due to the soft, skull-enclosed nature of the brain. Hence, the proposed research is to develop novel mathematical models to understand the fundamental mechanics of the healthy brain during high-rate loading, revealing how the brain's mechanical dynamics are affected from the tissue level (millimeters) down to the cellular level (microns). In the long term, the PI plans to represent the healthy human head via in silico models to understand the mechanical effects of various types of loading and develop effective brain protections. Although this may take years to realize, it is important to begin overcoming the challenges of representing the brain as a soft, viscoelastic, nonlinear, and anisotropic solid that has complex anatomical features. In the short term (next 5 years), the PI proposes three objectives that fit into the long-term goal: 1) Develop a new human head model that includes the gyri/sulci, detailed hippocampal components, brain vasculature, and fiber tracts. This will be a state-of-the-art finite element head model with a nonlinear, viscoelastic, and anisoptric brain and unprecedentedly detailed physics, which will help many scholars who collect head acceleration data understand comprehensive tissue-level mechanics needed to develop protection products, such as helmets and safety features in cars. 2) Conduct mathematical simulations of real-world events to gain novel understanding of the healthy brain under high-rate loading. This will overcome the challenges of breaking the barriers of various research camps, such as those who work on reducing brain strains from rotational impacts and those who work on reducing brain pressures from explosives, because the proposed research specifically investigates fundamental brain mechanics in scenarios that may externally look vastly different. 3) Create novel cellular-level mathematical models to understand how cellular-level components of the healthy brain respond to dynamic loading. This will promote the field's understanding of fundamental brain mechanics as the literature largely lacks such finer-level models because of the challenges of developing cellular-level geometries, material parameters, and boundary/loading conditions. Combined with Objective 1, the research will provide a new approach connecting tissue and cellular scales in brain mechanics.