Development of high-quality hexahedral human brain meshes using feature-based multi-block approach

• Published in: Computer methods in biomechanics and biomedical engineering 2013-03, Vol.16 (3), p.271-279
• Main Authors: Mao, Haojie, Gao, Haitao, Cao, Libo, Genthikatti, Vinay Veeranna, Yang, King H.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Brain - pathology; Brain Injuries - pathology; brain injury; Child, Preschool; Finite Element Analysis; finite element method; hexahedral mesh; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; multi-block technique; patient-specific model; subject-specific model
• ISSN: 1025-5842; 1476-8259
• DOI: 10.1080/10255842.2011.617005

The finite element (FE) method is a powerful tool to study brain injury that remains to be a critical health concern. Subject/patient-specific FE brain models have the potential to accurately predict a specific subject/patient's brain responses during computer-assisted surgery or to design subject-specific helmets to prevent brain injury. Unfortunately, efforts required in the development of high-quality hexahedral FE meshes for brain, which consists of complex intracranial surfaces and varying internal structures, are daunting. Using multi-block techniques, an efficient meshing process to develop all-hexahedral FE brain models for an adult and a paediatric brain (3-year old) was demonstrated in this study. Furthermore, the mesh densities could be adjusted at ease using block techniques. Such an advantage can facilitate a mesh convergence study and allows more freedom for choosing an appropriate brain mesh density by balancing available computation power and prediction accuracy. The multi-block meshing approach is recommended to efficiently develop 3D all-hexahedral high-quality models in biomedical community to enhance the acceptance and application of numerical simulations.