Effect of Impact Parameters on a Unilateral Contusion Model of Spinal Cord Injury in a Virtual Population of Non-Human Primates.

Non-human primate (NHP) spinal cord injury experiments exhibit high intersubject variability in biomechanical parameters even when a consistent impact protocol is applied to each subject. Optimizing impact parameters to reduce this variability through experiments is logistically challenging in NHP studies. Finite element models provide a complimentary tool to inform experimental design without the cost and complexity of live animal studies.

Correlating Tissue Mechanics and Spinal Cord Injury: Patient-Specific Finite Element Models of Unilateral Cervical Contusion Spinal Cord Injury in Non-Human Primates.

Non-human primate (NHP) models are the closest approximation of human spinal cord injury (SCI) available for pre-clinical trials. The NHP models, however, include broader morphological variability that can confound experimental outcomes. We developed subject-specific finite element (FE) models to quantify the relationship between impact mechanics and SCI, including the correlations between FE outcomes and tissue damage.

Compressive mechanical characterization of non-human primate spinal cord white matter.

Unlabelled: The goal of developing computational models of spinal cord injury (SCI) is to better understand the human injury condition. However, finite element models of human SCI have used rodent spinal cord tissue properties due to a lack of experimental data. Central nervous system tissues in non human primates (NHP) closely resemble that of humans and therefore, it is expected that material constitutive models obtained from NHPs will increase the fidelity and the accuracy of human SCI models.

The Transverse Isotropy of Spinal Cord White Matter Under Dynamic Load.

The rostral-caudally aligned fiber-reinforced structure of spinal cord white matter (WM) gives rise to transverse isotropy in the material. Stress and strain patterns generated in the spinal cord parenchyma following spinal cord injury (SCI) are multidirectional and dependent on the mechanism of the injury. Our objective was to develop a WM constitutive model that captures the material transverse isotropy under dynamic loading.