TY - JOUR
T1 - Blast-induced mild traumatic brain injury through ear canal
T2 - A finite element study
AU - Akula, Praveen
AU - Hua, Yi
AU - Gu, Linxia
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the Edgerton Innovation Award at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Engineering, and the U.S.
Funding Information:
Army Research Office project “Army-UNL Center for Trauma Mechanics” (Contract No. W911NF-08-10483).
PY - 2015/12/1
Y1 - 2015/12/1
N2 - Purpose: The role of ear canal in transmitting blast waves to the brain is not clear. The goal of this work is to characterize the influence of ear canal on blast-induced mild traumatic brain injury through a computational approach. Methods: A three-dimensional human head model with single-side ear canal details was reconstructed from computed tomography images. The ear canal was positioned either facing the incident blast wave or facing away from the blast wave. Results: The blast wave-head interaction has demonstrated that the overpressure within the ear canal was substantially amplified when the ear directly faced the blast wave. When it faced away from the blast wave, the overpressure within the ear canal was less than the actual incident blast pressure. Regardless of the substantial pressure differences within the ear canal induced by the blast wave, the resulting intracranial pressures were almost the same for both cases. Conclusions: The blast wave-head interaction has demonstrated that the role of the ear canal in brain dynamics, and thus brain injury, was negligible. However, the peak overpressure within the ear canal exceeded the documented tympanic membrane rupture and inner ear damage thresholds. This was speculated to cause the degeneration of axons along the auditory pathway up to the midbrain. This work provided fundamental understanding of the load transmission through the ear canal and could serve as a platform for designing better protective armors.
AB - Purpose: The role of ear canal in transmitting blast waves to the brain is not clear. The goal of this work is to characterize the influence of ear canal on blast-induced mild traumatic brain injury through a computational approach. Methods: A three-dimensional human head model with single-side ear canal details was reconstructed from computed tomography images. The ear canal was positioned either facing the incident blast wave or facing away from the blast wave. Results: The blast wave-head interaction has demonstrated that the overpressure within the ear canal was substantially amplified when the ear directly faced the blast wave. When it faced away from the blast wave, the overpressure within the ear canal was less than the actual incident blast pressure. Regardless of the substantial pressure differences within the ear canal induced by the blast wave, the resulting intracranial pressures were almost the same for both cases. Conclusions: The blast wave-head interaction has demonstrated that the role of the ear canal in brain dynamics, and thus brain injury, was negligible. However, the peak overpressure within the ear canal exceeded the documented tympanic membrane rupture and inner ear damage thresholds. This was speculated to cause the degeneration of axons along the auditory pathway up to the midbrain. This work provided fundamental understanding of the load transmission through the ear canal and could serve as a platform for designing better protective armors.
KW - Blast
KW - Ear canal
KW - Finite element modeling
KW - Stress transfer
KW - Traumatic brain injury
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U2 - 10.1007/s13534-015-0204-0
DO - 10.1007/s13534-015-0204-0
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84954201583
VL - 5
SP - 281
EP - 288
JO - Biomedical Engineering Letters
JF - Biomedical Engineering Letters
SN - 2093-9868
IS - 4
ER -