Skull Imaging Study Could Help Improve Vehicle Safety

Women's skulls are thicker than men's, but they both shrink gradually after they reach adulthood. This is the conclusion of a new computed tomography (CT) imaging study of 3,000 people, which should help in the design of more effective devices for protecting the head in vehicle collisions and other accidents.

Dr. Jesse Ruan, from the Ford Motor Co. (Dearborn, MI, USA), and colleagues from Tianjin University of Science and Technology (Tianjin, China) have devised a non-invasive method for determining and assessing the critical geometric characteristics of a person's skull. Their approach is based on head scan images of 3,000 patients at the Tianjin Fourth Central Hospital.

By utilizing CT scanning, the researchers discovered that the average thickness of the skull in men was 6.5 mm, but 7.1 mm in women. The average front to back measurement for men was 176 mm in men, but was less in women at 171 mm. Average width was 145 mm in men and 140 mm in women, the researchers revealed. "Skull thickness differences between genders are confirmed in our study,” Dr. Ruan said, "The next step will be to find out how these differences translate into head impact response of male and female, and then we can design the countermeasure for head protection.”

Skull thickness, as one might expect, improves the outcome for anyone suffering a head injury, but studies have also demonstrated that skull shape can also have an effect. However, the detailed relationship between skull thickness and shape and how well an individual tolerates a head injury have not been validated with most studies simply extrapolating from smaller to larger skull and thickness to predict the likely effects of an impact.

The current study involved a detailed statistical analysis of the various measurements for all 3,000 individuals scanned. The analysis shows that the distribution of skull size, shape, and thickness do not follow a so-called "normal” distribution pattern, and therefore, such extrapolations may be invalid. "Reliable biomechanical geometric data of the human skull can help us to better understand the problem of head injury during an impact,” the researchers reported, "and help in the design of better head protective devices.”

The study was published in the latest issue of the International Journal of Vehicle Safety (IJVS vol. 2, no. 4).


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