Existent literature has limitations regarding the mechanical behavior of axonal cytoskeletal components in a high strain rate scenario, which is mainly due to limitations regarding the structure of some components such as tau protein and neurofilaments (NF). This study performs molecular dynamics (MD) simulations on NFs to extract their strain rate-dependent behavior. It is found that they are highly stretchable and show multiple stages of unfolding. Furthermore, NFs show high tensile stiffness. Also, viscoelastic modeling shows that they correspond to simplified viscoelastic models. This study effectively enhances the existent axonal models focusing on axonal injury.
Keywords: axonal cytoskeleton; axonal injury; mechanical behavior; neurofilaments; viscoelastic modeling.