Do blast induced skull flexures result in axonal deformation?

Subject-specific computer models (male and female) of the human head were used to investigate the possible axonal deformation resulting from the primary phase blast-induced skull flexures. The corresponding axonal tractography was explicitly incorporated into these finite element models using a recently developed technique based on the embedded finite element method. These models were subjected to extensive verification against experimental studies which examined their pressure and displacement response under a wide range of loading conditions. Once verified, a parametric study was developed to investigate the axonal deformation for a wide range of loading overpressures and directions as well as varying cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) material models. This study focuses on early times during a blast event, just as the shock transverses the skull (-1. These high-strain rates of the axonal fiber tracts, caused by flexural displacement of the skull, could lead to a rate dependent micro-structural axonal damage, as pointed by other researchers.