Towards animal surrogates for characterising large strain dynamic mechanical properties of human brain tissue

The regional dynamic mechanical properties of mouse, rat, pig, and human brain tissue were compared directly in this first-of-its-kind study. Our results suggest the use of pig or mouse brain tissue as suitable surrogates to characterise human brain tissue. The importance of this work is highlighted by the extensive use of constitutive data from animal brain tissue in traumatic brain injury research in the absence of human brain tissue data without any direct evidence supporting their use. Indentation force-relaxation experiments were performed on mouse, rat, pig, and human brains at 10/s strain rate up to 35% strain to determine the dynamic mechanical properties of brain tissue. Finite element models have become useful tools to investigate the biomechanics of traumatic brain injury - a global leading cause of death and disability and a risk factor for developing neurodegenerative diseases. However, these models require accurate constitutive data for brain tissue to produce reliable results. The results presented here provide validation for the use of pig and mouse brain tissue data in such models.

Statement of Significance

The significance of this work is underscored by the extensive use of animal brain tissue as a surrogate for human brain tissue without any direct evidence supporting the validity of their use. For the first time ever, we demonstrate that porcine and murine brain tissue can be used as surrogates for human brain tissue under dynamic loading conditions. These findings will allow researchers to select appropriate animal surrogates for human brain tissue under dynamic loading conditions. Furthermore, our findings support the use of animal surrogate data to improve the fidelity of computational models of the human brain, and provide experimental data to develop constitutive models of brain tissue.