According to basic research on brain trauma caused by micro-level injury, brain deformation triggers nerve injury. In traumatic brain injury, brain deformation and nerve injury are both important factors for severe brain injury. The purpose of this study is to develop a human head dummy for nerve injury assessment, more specifically, an alternate brain developed for a human head dummy. According to basic research into nerve injury related to traumatic brain injury, mechanical strain to brain neurons causes increase in intercellular Ca
2+ as a transmitter substance. Therefore, this alternate brain can rapidly increase the internal Ca
2+ amount by mechanical strain. To realize this increase, the alternate brain has interior microcapsules. If the surface of a microcapsule is broken by mechanical strain on the alternate brain, the microcapsule releases Ca
2+ into the alternate brain. According to tolerance research on nerve injury in swine cadavers, nerve injury occurs at a compression strain of 30%. Therefore, the microcapsules, which contain carrageenan, must rupture at a compression strain of 30% applied on the alternate brain. To evaluate various bruise situations, frontal, occipital, and side drop tests applied impact load on the evaluation dummy. In the frontal and occipital drop tests, the increase in Ca
2+ occurs in the frontal region of the alternate brain. On the other hand, in the side impact test, the increase in Ca
2+ occurs in the impact and non-impact regions. These results mimic real brain injury. Hence, this evaluation is a reproducible model for local brain nerve injury.
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