History Matters: Damage-Mediated Amplification of Brain Deformation and Injury Risk under Repeated Head Impacts

Abstract

Computational head models are typically applied to isolated impacts, leaving repeated head loading largely unexplored. An Ogden-Roxburgh Mullins damage formulation was implemented in a high-fidelity finite element head model to represent loading-history-dependent softening during cyclic brain-tissue deformation. Repeated-loading histories derived from mixed martial arts head-impact data were applied and compared with damage-free hyperelastic (HE) and linear visco-hyperelastic (LVHE) model variants. Under five identical single-axis cycles, Mullins-type softening progressively increased strain and strain rate metrics relative to the HE model. Mullins-based injury probabilities progressively exceeded strain-based HE predictions and diverged from unchanged kinematics-based predictions, indicating that neglecting prior softening may underestimate injury risk. In a randomized twenty-cycle multiaxial sequence, cycles of similar kinematic intensity produced different deformation and injury-risk estimates depending on prior softening. HE and LVHE models predicted higher injury probabilities initially, whereas the Mullins-based model produced the largest later-cycle estimates and highest probability of at least one injury over the sequence. Regional amplification depended on loading direction and prior softening, with no direction-independent trend among brain substructures. Gyral elements exhibited higher cumulative maximum principal strain than sulcal elements, which showed greater amplification relative to initial responses. These findings demonstrate that short-term damage-mediated softening can substantially amplify tissue deformation and injury-risk estimates beyond damage-free head models under the same loading histories. Further experimental characterization of cyclic brain-tissue softening is needed to improve models of repeated head loading and traumatic brain injury.