Session: 05-01-02: Injury and Damage Biomechanics: Brain Response at the Cellular Level

Paper Number: 99999

99999 - Accelerative Loading on Neuron-Cell Embedded Head Phantom and Cell Response 

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a serious public health issue that affects an estimated 1.7 million people in the USA every year and results in death of over 50,000 people. About 75% of TBI cases are classified as mild TBI (mTBI) where symptoms and diagnosis are often very subtle. Nevertheless, mTBI can result from various mechanisms including ballistic or blast impact as well as accelerative/decelerative forces caused by falls, concussion, vehicular accidents etc. Quantitative determination of the relations between linear/rotational accelerations and brain injury probability is important for designing appropriate protective equipment. To this end, a variety of efforts aimed toward mitigating or preventing TBI have turned to advanced computational models of the head and neck to better understand the role of high-rate deformations, forces, stresses, and strains in the overall associated injury risk potential. While these models have progressed in their complexity and predictive power, their experimental validation and specifically resolution of critical cellular and subcellular injury or damage thresholds have remained elusive. By characterizing morphological damages and critical time points of most severity to neuronal cells, this project has developed a phantom head model that can aid in better prediction of outcomes of TBI. This project hopes to better characterize neural cell proteomes at critical injury thresholds. In particular, adherent model cell Hela and neuronal cell SH-SY5Y are cultured in DMEM /RPMI media supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum, 1% penicillin/streptomycin in a humidified atmosphere of 5% CO₂, and selective antibiotics. Morphological differences before and after impact are observed and recorded for HeLa and SH-SY5Y cells. For this section, cells are seeded at 6 x 10⁵ cells/ml in 35mm dishes. The media is carefully discarded. Calcein AM solution is diluted as 1:500 (Calcein AM solution:Calcein Dilution Buffer) to each dish. The dishes are then incubated for 30 minutes at 37°C. The cell shape changes before and after impact are observed under BZ-X800 fluorescence microscope. In addition, mass spectrometry analysis of neural cells before and after impact can give us better insight on the aftermath of TBI on neurons, this will aid in a better understanding of impacts and prevention of loss of function within the central nervous system. The impact experiment utilizes a custom phantom head model that allowed live cells to be positioned at three different locations within the head, the front, the middle, and the back. Surrounding the cells, the medium could be changed from water to different brain material simulants as desired. The phantom head was fitted with two accelerometers so that the linear and rotational accelerations could be measured during an impact delivered by a pendulum. Before and after an impact, the live cells are examined with a fluorescence microscope to determine what degree of damage has been done to the cells. A cell injury curve as a function of applied accelerations is generated.

Presenting Author: Aurchie Rahman University of Texas at Arlington

Presenting Author Biography: Ms. Aurchie is a graduate research assistant in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at University of Texas at Arlington. Her research is related to traumatic brain injury mechanisms, neuronal cell culture, microscopy and proteomics.

Authors:

Aurchie Rahman University of Texas at Arlington
Aaron Jackson University of Texas at Arlington
Arthur Koster University of Texas at Arlington
Rahid Zaman University of Texas at Arlington
Richie Ranaisa Daru University of Texas at Arlington
Saiful M Chowdhury University of Texas at Arlington
Ashfaq Adnan University of Texas at Arlington