Transient solid-fluid interactions in rat brain tissue under combined translational shear and fixed compression

An external mechanical insult to the brain may create internal deformation waves, which have shear and longitudinal components that induce combined shear and compression of the brain tissue. To isolate such interactions and to investigate the role of the extracellular fluid (ECF) in the transient mechanical response, translational shear stretch up to 1.25 under either 0 or 33% fixed normal compression is applied without preconditioning to heterogeneous sagittal slices which are nearly the full length of the rat brain cerebrum. The normal stress contribution is estimated by separate unconfined compression stress-stretch curves at 0.0667/s and 1/s engineering strain rates to 33% strain. Unconfined compression deformation causes lateral dimension expansion less than that predicted for an incompressible material under large deformation and often a visible loss of internal fluid from the specimen so that the bulk brain tissue is not incompressible in vitro, as sometimes assumed for mathematical modeling. The response to both slow 0.001/s and moderate 1/s shear translational stretch rates is deformation rate dependent and hardening under no compression but under 33% compression is nearly linear perhaps because of increased solid-solid friction. Both shear and normal stress relaxation are faster after the fast rate deformation possibly because higher deformation rates produce higher ECF hydrostatic pressure that primarily drives stress relaxation. The experimental results on ECF behavior guide the form of our nonlinear viscoelastic mathematical model. Our data are closely fit by non-equilibrium evolution equations that involve at most three specimen-specific empirical parameters and that are based on the idea that stretch of axons and glial processes resists load-induced ECF pressure.