Development of a weight drop injury device suitable for blunt, closed-head injury using a rodent model

Abstract

The development and characterization of a weight drop injury (WDI) device intended to produce experimental brain injury is presented. This report describes the construction and operation of the in-house developed weight drop injury device which was designed to simulate any severity of TBI. Results show that the device can capture the impact response, providing impact dynamic measurements necessary for injury biomechanics. Furthermore, the injury device is capable of modeling closed head injury loads as seen in literature. Among the design's strengths is its high repeatability and controllability of injury dynamics.

Keywords

• Weight drop injury
• Experimental brain injury
• Mild Traumatic brain injury (mTBI)
• Subconcussion
• Rodent model