Mouse models are used to better understand brain injury mechanisms in humans, yet there is a limited understanding of biomechanical relevance, beginning with how the murine brain deforms when the head undergoes rapid rotation from blunt impact. This problem makes it difficult to translate some aspects of diffuse axonal injury from mouse to human. To address this gap, we present the two-dimensional strain field of the mouse brain undergoing dynamic rotation in the sagittal plane. Using a high-speed camera with digital image correlation measurements of the exposed mid-sagittal brain surface, we found that pure rotations (no direct impact to the skull) of 100–200 rad/s are capable of producing complex strain fields that evolve over time with respect to rotational acceleration and deceleration. At the highest rotational velocity tested, the largest tensile strains (≥ 21% elongation) in selected regions of the mouse brain approach strain thresholds previously associated with axonal injury in prior work. These findings provide a benchmark to validate the mechanical response in biomechanical computational models predicting diffuse axonal injury, but much work remains in correlating tissue deformation patterns from computational models with underlying neuropathology.

小鼠模型用于更好地了解人类脑损伤机制，但对生物力学相关性的了解有限，首先是当头部因钝器撞击而快速旋转时，小鼠大脑如何变形。这个问题使得将弥漫性轴突损伤的某些方面从小鼠转移到人类变得困难。为了解决这一差距，我们展示了在矢状面进行动态旋转的小鼠大脑的二维应变场。使用高速相机对暴露的中矢状脑表面进行数字图像相关测量，我们发现 100-200 rad/s 的纯旋转（对头骨没有直接影响）能够产生复杂的应变场，该应变场在与旋转加速度和减速度有关的时间。在测试的最高旋转速度下，小鼠大脑选定区域的最大拉伸应变（≥ 21% 伸长率）接近先前工作中与轴突损伤相关的应变阈值。这些发现为验证预测弥漫性轴突损伤的生物力学计算模型中的机械响应提供了基准，但将计算模型中的组织变形模式与潜在的神经病理学相关联仍有许多工作要做。