In silico investigation of intracranial blast mitigation with relevance to military traumatic brain injury

A computational model coupling mechanics and electrophysiology in spinal cord injury

“…Computational biomechanics simulations making use of finite element schemes have recently allowed for the identification of stress extrema and/or patterns at the tissue (Moore et al 2009;Nyein et al 2010;Cloots 2011;Cloots et al 2013;Gupta and Przekwas 2013) and cell scales (Jerusalem and Dao 2012) during TBI events (see these references for a complete literature review). Conversely, recent work building on the observation of "leaky" voltage-gated sodium ion channel after trauma (Wang et al 2009) has proposed a model of the resulting hyperpolarization-(left-)shifts of the ion channel current (Boucher et al 2012).…”

Distinguishing realistic military blasts from firecrackers in mitigation studies of blast-induced traumatic brain injury

“…A face shield may indeed be important for future military helmets, but Nyein et al (1,2) derived their conclusions from a much smaller explosion than typically experienced on the battlefield.…”

“…In their Contributed Article, Nyein et al (1,2) presented numerical simulations of blast waves interacting with a helmeted head and concluded that a face shield may significantly mitigate blast-induced traumatic brain injury (TBI). A face shield may indeed be important for future military helmets, but Nyein et al (1,2) derived their conclusions from a much smaller explosion than typically experienced on the battlefield.…”

On the prospective contributions of the shock physics community to outstanding issues concerning blast-induced traumatic brain injury

“…They simulated scenarios including blast waves with peak overpressures between 110 and 740 kPa with durations between 1.3 and 6.9 ms. Varas et al [11] reported peak overpressure and duration data from alleged IED experiments and stated that the ranges of peak overpressure between 10 and 200 kPa and positive phase durations between 4 and 10 ms are relevant to a military IED scenario. In a response to Nyein et al [12], who had chosen a very close exposure to a 3.16-g TNT charge to simulate a blast threat, Moss et al [13] mentioned that 2.2 kg of TNT was a more relevant military threat. Rafaels et al [14] stated that relevant scenarios including terrorist attacks may consist in the explosion of 1-800 kg of TNT equivalent, at various distances.…”