A Scientific Approach to Understanding the Head Trauma Endured by a Mixed Martial Arts Fighter

The purpose of this research is to gain some insight on the type of head trauma an athlete may encounter during mixed martial arts (MMA) competition. These athletes endure continuous blows to the head throughout their training and fighting career. The knowledge obtained from this research may assist MMA athletes and trainers in assessing the way they train, how they compete and, more importantly, how long they choose to compete in their amateur or professional MMA career. The analysis is performed by first creating a three-dimensional solid model of the human head based on geometric coordinates originally obtained from a cadaver. The geometry is then imported into a Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software and validated by simulating a benchmark model based on experimental results. This research utilizes experimental data provided by the National Geographic on impact loads of various MMA striking techniques applied to the already validated geometry and FEA model to obtain the resulting pressure that occurs in the brain of the human head. These results are subsequently analyzed to determine how severe this trauma may be to an athlete. Key points such as ways to further improve the FEA results are also discussed

A Finite Element Study of the Dynamic Response of Brain Based on Two Parasagittal Slice Models

The objective of this study is to investigate the influence of gyri and sulci on the response of human head under transient loading. To this end, two detailed parasagittal slice models with and without gyri and sulci have been developed. The models comprised not only cerebrum and skull but also cerebellum, brain stem, CSF, and corpus callosum. In addition, white and gray matters were separated. The material properties were adopted from the literature and assigned to different parts of the models. Nahum’s and Trosseille’s experiments reported in relevant literature were simulated and the simulation results were compared with the test data. The results show that there is no evident difference in terms of intracranial pressure between the models with and without gyri and sulci under simulated conditions. The equivalent stress below gyri and sulci in the model with gyri and sulci is slightly higher than that in the counterpart model without gyri and sulci. The maximum principle strain in brain tissue is lower in the model with gyri and sulci. The stress and strain distributions are changed due to the existence of gyri and sulci. These findings highlight the necessity to include gyri and sulci in the finite element head modeling