Mechanism of Scalp and Skull Injuries, Concussion, Contusion and Laceration

Comparison of Intracranial Pressure by Lateral and Frontal Impacts - Validation of Computational Model

“…Prior experiments on the capability of the human brain to hold impact forces were performed at Wayne State University using human cadavers and animal models [21,22] as shown in Figure 6. This work led to the publication of the Wayne State Tolerance Curve [23,24], a generally logarithmic curve that describes the relationship between the magnitude and duration of impact acceleration and the onset of skull fractures [7].…”

Biomechanical Aspects of Blunt and Penentrating Head Injuries

“…Quantifications of head injuries were reported in the 1930-60 literature, although limited fundamental biomechanical studies were conducted earlier [3][4][5][6][7]. Linear and angular accelerations were considered governing variables to describe mechanisms of trauma and define tolerance limits [8,9].…”

“…Pulses were of short duration because of the rigid end condition at the instant of impact. Association of linear skull fracture with brain injury, i.e., concussion (80% correlation from clinical cases) was based on previous studies [3,5]. Peak accelerations were used from three isolated and two intact whole-body cadaver tests, and mean acceleration data was used from the other isolated head to develop the original tolerance curve that had durations of up to 6 msec [8].…”

How the 1950s changed our understanding of traumatic encephalopathy and its sequelae

“…In 1955, Elisha Gurdjian and colleagues noted cellular changes caused by subconcussive blows, 12 a point Gurdjian and Webster echoed in their 1958 classic Head injuries: mechanism, diagnosis and management, in which they described postsubconcussion syndrome (a term they deployed for the sequelae of head injury that had not necessarily caused temporary blackout and memory loss) as "probably the result of functional and of organic cerebral disturbance due to a subconcussive injury." When, in 1957, neurologist Macdonald Critchley characterized the tangle pathology of chronic traumatic encephalopathy seen in boxers, 13 it appears that he thus only delineated an injury that boxers (with their repeated head injuries) made particularly apparent in postmortem examination.…”