Validation of an improved injury device for in vitro study of neural cell deformation - biomed 2009.

Traumatic Brain Injury is hypothesized to occur as a function of the strain and strain rate experienced by neural tissues during a traumatic event. In vitro studies of TBI at the cellular level have used a variety of methods to subject neural cell cultures to potentially injurious strains and strain rates. The Advanced Cell Deformation System (ACDS) has been developed which has the ability to independently control strain and strain rate and can strain cell cultures grown on a stretchable membrane from 0.1 to 0.60 at rates up to 25 s-1. The ability to control strain and strain rate independently or to simulate quick repetitive loading was not available in previous devices. Here we present the experiments testing the ability of the ACDS to replicate the results of in vitro experiments of neural cell deformation conducted by earlier researchers. This is a first step toward future experiments which will use the more advanced capabilities of the ACDS.