The Multiscale Nature of the Brain and Traumatic Brain Injury

Murphy, M. A., & Vo, A. (2021). The Multiscale Nature of the Brain and Traumatic Brain Injury. Multiscale Biomechanical Modeling of the Brain. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Academic Press. 1-26. DOI:10.1016/B978-0-12-818144-7.00004-9.

The complex multiscale nature of the brain's structure requires that each length scale be considered to understand injuries to the brain. Experimentally, this includes a mix of in vivo, ex vivo, and in vitro tests. However, these experiments are not sufficient to identify, explain, and quantify injury mechanisms across the length scales, necessitating the use of computational methods. This chapter provides an overview of the brain's multiscale structure to demonstrate the brain's interconnected structural hierarchy. Additionally, an overview of the multiscale aspects of traumatic brain injury (TBI) is introduced, including types of injuries, examples of injuries, and potential neurobehavioral sequeulae. Finally, representative methods for experiment and simulation methods related to TBI are described.