The Clemedson Blast Tube

Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) because of detonations have become a significant problem in military medicine. Partly because the use of modern body protection has increased the survival of victims subjected to detonations from landmines or improvised explosive devices. Detonations commonly expose these victims to pressure waves, high speed fragments, and bodily accelerations. The pressure wave itself may result in a mild TBI, commonly referred to as primary blast, while penetration of fragments into the brain and head rotations resulting from body accelerations can lead to more severe forms of TBI. The details of the cellular injury mechanisms of primary blast are still debated and studies are needed to understand the propagation and effects of the pressure waves inside the skull. Laboratory experiments with good control for physical parameters can provide information that is difficult to retrieve from real-life cases of blast injury. This study focused on head kinematics and pressure propagation into the animal brain cavity during simulated blast trauma (part 1) and the behavioral outcome (part 2). The rat blast model presented here produced maximum intracranial pressure increases of 6\ua0bar while minimal pressure drops. Violent head-to-head restraint contact occurred at approximately 1.7\ua0ms after the pressure pulse reached the head; this contact did not produce any high intracranial pressures. Working memory error was not significantly changed between the exposed and controls at 1\ua0week after blast while significantly more reference memory errors at 5\ua0days and 2\ua0weeks following injury compared to sham after blast

Understanding blast-induced neurotrauma: how far have we come?

Blast injuries, including blast-induced neurotrauma (BINT), are caused by blast waves generated during an explosion. Accordingly, their history coincides with that of explosives. Hence, it is intriguing that, after more than 1000 years of using explosives, our understanding of the pathological consequences of blast and body/brain interactions is extremely limited. Postconflict recovery mechanisms seemingly include the suppression of painful experiences, such as explosive injuries. Unfortunately, ignoring the knowledge generated by previous generations of scientists retards research progress, leading to superfluous and repetitive studies. This article summarizes clinical and experimental findings published about blast injuries and BINT following the wars of the 20th and 21th centuries. Moreover, it offers a personal view on potential factors interfering with the progress of BINT research working toward providing better diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation for military personnel affected by blast exposure

Experimental Models for Neurotrauma Research

Physical trauma in the central nervous system (CNS) is usually the result of a number of forces in different directions and dimensions. A large number of experimental models have been developed to improve the possibilities to understand the outcome of CNS trauma. In this chapter, we will describe the need for a variety of experimental models for research on traumatic brain injury (TBI) and spinal cord injury (SCI). Models can serve different needs, such as: to test new treatments for injuries, to reveal thresholds for injuries, to provide a better understanding of injury mechanisms, or to test tools and methods for translation between experiments and clinical data. In this chapter, we will discuss on the validation of models and translation between experimental and clinical studies