Effect of age on amount and distribution of diffuse axonal injury after rotational trauma

Other conference contribution, 2013

Injury thresholds for diffuse axonal injuries (DAI) due to rotational head trauma are being developed. However, age may influence injury risk. Understanding this relationship is necessary for the development of injury criteria for children and elderly. Here rats were exposed to sagittal plane rotational acceleration head trauma and the outcome studied using Amyloid Precursor Protein to detect axonal injuries. For relatively young animals, DAI were found in and along the border of the corpus callosum and in the brainstem when rotational acceleration exceeded 1.1 Mrad/s2. Slightly older animals required higher accelerations to exhibit similar injury levels and the injury patterns were different. In conclusion, a previous study showed that the onset of diffuse axonal injuries started to appear at 10 krad/s2 with a duration of 4 ms, when scaled for humans, whereas new data indicate that this onset is slightly higher for occupants thata atre approximately 15 years older.