Document Type : Full Research Paper
Authors
1 Assistant Professor, Biomechanics Group, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
2 M.Sc. Student, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
3 B.Sc., Department of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Understanding the mechanism of artificial disc degeneration using animal models is useful to study the regenerative techniques in hope of finding potential therapeutic strategies. For any type of potential therapeutic techniques, first we need to have the degenerated model. Disc degeneration can be mimicked in animal studies using needle puncture. However, the detailed mechanical response of the artificial degenerated disc using needle puncture under physiological diurnal activities has not been analyzed well.Hence, reverse finite element analyses combined with in-vitro experiments were used in this study to find the mechanical properties of intact (N=8) and injured discs using needle puncture (N=8). Afterward, specimen-specific FE models for 16 discs were simulated during physiological diurnal activity. The results showed that the variation of axial displacement, intradiscal pressure, and total fluid exchangein intact discs were significantly higher than the injured ones after 24h. But the maximum axial stress within disc was significantly higher in injured group. The achieved results are correlated with previous human cadaver data for natural disc degeneration. Therefore, it is concluded that the G-16needle puncture injury is a simple and cost-effective methodology which can be used to mimic the degeneration mechanism in animal models.
Keywords
- intervertebral disc
- disc degeneration
- In-Vitro Experiment
- finite element method
- Optimization
- Daily Dynamic Loading
Main Subjects