Chapter 1
Introduction
Karol Miller
The mechanical behaviour of living tissues continues to be the major topic of
biomechanical investigations. Over the years a vast amount of knowledge about
load-bearing tissues, such as bones, ligaments, muscles, and other components
of the musculoskeletal system, blood vessels (and blood), lungs, skin, and hair,
has been published in journals and books. The very soft tissues of organs whose
role has little or nothing to do with transmitting mechanical loads had been, until
recently, outside the scope of the mainstream biomechanical research. Extremely
important organs such as the liver, kidneys, prostate and other abdominal organs,
and especially the brain have been largely neglected by biomechanics.
Investigation of the mechanical properties of the brain began in the late 1960s.
Ommaya described mammalian brain as a ‘soft, yielding structure, not as stiff as a
gel, nor as plastic as a paste’ [1]. These first studies were motivated by the increasing
number of traumatic brain injuries resulting from automotive accidents. The first
finite element models of the brain appeared in the early 1980s. Since then, the
biomechanics of the brain for injury analysis and prevention has been a very active
area of research.
There is wide international concern about the cost of meeting rising expectations
for health care, particularly if large numbers of people require currently expensive procedures such as brain surgery. Costs can be reduced by using improved
machinery to help surgeons perform these procedures quickly and accurately, with
minimal side effects. A novel partnership between surgeons and machines, made
possible by advances in computing and engineering technology, could overcome
many of the limitations of traditional surgery. By extending surgeons’ ability to
plan and carry out surgical interventions more accurately and with less trauma,
K. Miller ()
Intelligent Systems for Medicine Laboratory, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA,
Australia
e-mail: karol.miller@uwa.edu.au
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
K. Miller (ed.), Biomechanics of the Brain, Biological and Medical Physics,
Biomedical Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04996-6_1
1
Introduction
Karol Miller
The mechanical behaviour of living tissues continues to be the major topic of
biomechanical investigations. Over the years a vast amount of knowledge about
load-bearing tissues, such as bones, ligaments, muscles, and other components
of the musculoskeletal system, blood vessels (and blood), lungs, skin, and hair,
has been published in journals and books. The very soft tissues of organs whose
role has little or nothing to do with transmitting mechanical loads had been, until
recently, outside the scope of the mainstream biomechanical research. Extremely
important organs such as the liver, kidneys, prostate and other abdominal organs,
and especially the brain have been largely neglected by biomechanics.
Investigation of the mechanical properties of the brain began in the late 1960s.
Ommaya described mammalian brain as a ‘soft, yielding structure, not as stiff as a
gel, nor as plastic as a paste’ [1]. These first studies were motivated by the increasing
number of traumatic brain injuries resulting from automotive accidents. The first
finite element models of the brain appeared in the early 1980s. Since then, the
biomechanics of the brain for injury analysis and prevention has been a very active
area of research.
There is wide international concern about the cost of meeting rising expectations
for health care, particularly if large numbers of people require currently expensive procedures such as brain surgery. Costs can be reduced by using improved
machinery to help surgeons perform these procedures quickly and accurately, with
minimal side effects. A novel partnership between surgeons and machines, made
possible by advances in computing and engineering technology, could overcome
many of the limitations of traditional surgery. By extending surgeons’ ability to
plan and carry out surgical interventions more accurately and with less trauma,
K. Miller ()
Intelligent Systems for Medicine Laboratory, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA,
Australia
e-mail: karol.miller@uwa.edu.au
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
K. Miller (ed.), Biomechanics of the Brain, Biological and Medical Physics,
Biomedical Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04996-6_1
1