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Brain Motion, Deformation, And Potential Injury During Soccer Heading, Charles F. Babbs

Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering Faculty Working Papers

This paper addresses the problem of what is happening physically inside the skull during head-ball contact. Mathematical models based upon Newton’s laws of motion and numerical methods are used to create animations of brain motion and deformation inside the skull.

Initially a 1 cm gap filled with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) separates the brain from the rigid skull in adults and older children. Whole head acceleration induces a pulse of artificial gravity within the skull. Because brain density differs slightly from that of CSF, the brain accelerates and strikes the inner aspect of the skull, undergoing viscoelastic deformation, ranging from 1 …