Temperature effects on brain tissue in compression

Abstract

Extensive research has been carried out for at least 50 years to understand the mechanical properties of brain tissue in order to understand the mechanisms of traumatic brain injury (TBI). The observed large variability in experimental results may be due to the inhomogeneous nature of brain tissue and to the broad range of test conditions. However, test temperature is also considered as one of the factors influencing the properties of brain tissue. In this research, the mechanical properties of porcine brain have been investigated at 22°C (room temperature), and at 37°C (body temperature) while maintaining a constant preservation temperature of approximately 4-5°C. Unconfined compression tests were performed at dynamic strain rates of 30 and 50s(-1) using a custom made test apparatus. There was no significant difference (p=0.8559-0.9290) between the average engineering stresses of the brain tissue at the two different temperature conditions. The results of this study should help to understand the behavior of brain tissue at different temperature conditions, particularly in unconfined compression tests.