TBI induced rate dependent viscoelastic response of axon: Predictions from a mathematical model
View/ Open
Date
2015-11-24Author
Jonnalagadda, Manikanta
0000-0002-0335-3376
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) accounts to almost one fifth of total fatal injuries. Even though there are various mechanisms hypothesized for the causes leading to TBI, diffuse axonal injury (DAI) is found to be the most observed criterion. The reason for axonal failure in DAI has been studied extensively using experimental and computational models. It was found that axons behave like viscoelastic materials, thus exhibiting rate dependent behavior under loading. This viscoelastic behavior of axons is believed to drive the failure of axons and its substructures. It was observed that axon failure is caused by failures and distortions in axonal cytoskeleton, particularly Microtubule-Tau protein assembly.Inspired by the previous work, we have developed modified shear lag model to predict axonal damage under dynamic loading conditions.
Opposed to previous work where only tau proteins were considered viscoelastic, we have assumed both microtubules and tau proteins to be viscoelastic and modeled them using a two parameter kelvin model. We have then studied the effect of strain rate on viscoelastic response of microtubule –tau protein assembly. We have attempted to determine a phase diagram in terms of loading rate and applied strain to isolate the two possible axonal deformation modes, namely microtubule failure due to excessive stretch and reversible microtubule sliding due to tau protein stretch