Computational Biomechanics Model for Analysis of Cervical Spinal Cord Deformations Under Whiplash-Type Loading

Computational biomechanics analysis of neurologic injuries has so far been focused on the brain. This has resulted in the development of industrially applied computational biomechanics models of the brain and various criteria (such as cumulative strain damage measure, CSDM and maximum principal strain, MPS) to determine the likelihood of brain injuries. In contrast, spinal cord injury (SCI) has attracted relatively little attention from the computational biomechanics research community. This study, addresses this gap by applying computational biomechanics analysis to predict deformations of the cervical spinal cord and the risk of SCI. To do this, a three-dimensional finite element model of the cervical spinal cord was built using data from the Visible Human Project and incorporated into a well-established finite element model of the human body for injury analysis, created by the Global Human Body Models Consortium (GHMBC). The model was applied to simulate well-documented low-speed whiplash-type experiments previously conducted on volunteers by the Japan Automobile Research Institute and University of Tsukuba. The results suggest that direct application of CSDM and MPS criteria and the related injury risk curves leads to overestimation of SCI risk.