Mechanical Modification of Cells by Pressure Waves and Its Application to Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract

Recently there has been interest in determining what happens to the human brain during a traumatic brain injury (TBI). The blast wave created by explosive devices, such as landmines, is one of the most common causes of TBI. The purpose of this study is to investigate the link between an explosion and a cells reaction to a blast wave on a time scale of a few hours. Three different types of cells were tested by pressure waves exposure, fibroblasts (3T3), epithelial cervical cancer (HeLa), and canine epithelial kidney cells (MDCK). Fluorescent images of the cells before and after pressure wave exposure were used to determine how much damage cells have suffered. 3T3 cells showed the most cellular modification while HeLa and MDCK were more resilient. A simple scaling model is proposed to relate the cellular modification to the shock strength.