Bridging the sex gap in traumatic brain injury biomechanics

Description du projet

Le rôle du sexe dans les lésions cérébrales traumatiques

Les lésions cérébrales traumatiques (LCT) touchent 30 millions de femmes chaque année. Bien que les femmes soient plus susceptibles que les hommes de subir des lésions cérébrales plus importantes en cas de faible impact, elles sont sous-représentées dans la recherche sur les LCT, en particulier en ce qui concerne la biomécanique spécifique au sexe. En outre, les modèles cérébraux computationnels actuels ont été conçus à partir de données exclusivement masculines et ne parviennent pas à représenter correctement les LCT féminines en raison des différences neuroanatomiques. Le projet brainsex, financé par le CER, vise à étudier le rôle du sexe dans la biomécanique des LCT et à développer des modèles qui intègrent les différences anatomiques spécifiques au sexe. Les résultats permettront d’améliorer les prévisions des LCT en ce qui concerne les lésions du cerveau et du tissu cérébro-vasculaire chez les hommes et les femmes.

Objectif

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a multi-anatomical-scale mechanical injury affecting 30 million women globally each year. brainsex will focus on the sex specific biomechanics of TBI in the elderly population motivated by the highest reported incidence of TBI in people over 75 years old. Furthermore, in the elderly population women account for more TBIs than men. However, women remain underrepresented in TBI research. Finite element brain models (FEBMs) have played a major role in improving our understanding of TBI. However, current FEBMs have been developed using male-only data and cannot accurately model female TBI due to the distinct sex specific neuroanatomies. I will embark on frontier research to test the hypothesis that TBI biomechanics are sex specific due to the multiscale sex specific neuroanatomy, causing damage to brain tissue, cerebral vasculature, and neurons under lower impact forces in women compared to men. To realize this ambitious goal, my team and I will develop ground-breaking sex specific FEBMs incorporating the multiscale sex specific neuroanatomy and constitutive damage properties of brain tissue and cerebral vasculature providing more accurate predictions of TBI from high energy head impacts. We will develop novel experimental technologies to characterise the constitutive damage properties of brain and cerebrovascular tissue (Aim 1), and neurons (Aim 2) under conditions required to model brain deformation during TBI. This data will be used to develop the first ever microstructure-informed constitutive damage model for brain tissue (Aim 2). This model combined with the FEBMs will revolutionise TBI biomechanics (Aim 3). brainsex will open new research horizons for biomechanics research focussing on the important role sex plays in tissue biomechanics. brainsex will deliver a breakthrough in our understanding of TBI biomechanics by delineating the sex dependent mechanical behaviour of brain tissue and cerebral vasculature during head impacts.