Mechanical Properties of Cervical Spinal Cord in Neonatal Piglet: In Vitro

The response of neonatal spinal cord tissue to tensile loading is not well-studied. In this study, isolated fresh neonatal cervical spinal cord samples, obtained from twelve 2-4 days old piglets, were tested in uniaxial tension at a rate of 500 mm/min until failure. Maximum load, maximum stress, percentage strain at maximum stress and modulus of elasticity were reported to be 14.6±3.4 N, 0.34±0.11 MPa, 29.3±5.4% and 1.52±0.8 MPa, respectively. These data can help understand the biomechanical behavior of the spinal cord in neonates and can be further used in computational modeling to understand injury mechanisms better and help develop injury prevention strategies.