See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/317836555

Cervical spine finite element model with anatomically accurate asymmetric

intervertebral discs

Conference Paper · June 2017

CITATIONS READS

4 326

4 authors:

Jobin D. John Mike W.J. Arun

Chalmers University of Technology Medical College of Wisconsin
8 PUBLICATIONS   16 CITATIONS    26 PUBLICATIONS   131 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Saravana Kumar Gurunathan Narayan Yoganandan

Indian Institute of Technology Madras Medical College of Wisconsin
117 PUBLICATIONS   407 CITATIONS    614 PUBLICATIONS   10,151 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Dynamic Rollover Occupant Protection (DROP) View project

Surface Roughness in AM View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Jobin D. John on 09 April 2018.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 SB3C2017
Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering and Biotransport Conference
June 21 – 24, Tucson, AZ, USA
CERVICAL SPINE FINITE ELEMENT MODEL
WITH ANATOMICALLY ACCURATE ASYMMETRIC INTERVERTEBRAL DISCS

Jobin D. John (1,2), Mike W. J. Arun (1), Saravana Kumar G. (2), Narayan Yoganandan (1)

(1) Department of Neurosurgery (2) Department of Engineering Design

Medical College of Wisconsin Indian Institute of Technology Madras
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

INTRODUCTION Table 1: Element Types and material definitions

Finite element (FE) models of the human cervical spine have Component Element type Material
been used to study the response under physiological and traumatic Cancellous Hexahedral, under integrated Linear elastic[8]
loading conditions. They include studies on the effects of Cortical Quadrilateral, shell Linear elastic[9],[10]
degeneration, surgical intervention, artificial disc replacement, and AF ground Hexahedral, Hill foam[11],[12]
rear impacts induced whiplash associated disorders. Some of them AF fibers Quadrilateral, membrane Nonlinear elastic [2], [13]
have also been incorporated into whole body FE models for simulating Nucleus Hexahedral, constant stress Viscoelastic fluid [14]
Facet fluid Hexahedral, constant stress Fluid [15]
automotive crashes [1], [2]. It is important to accurately represent the
Ligaments Quadrilateral, membrane Nonlinear elastic[2]
geometry of spinal components and use appropriate material models to
obtain realistic outputs from FE models. Considerable efforts have
been advanced to better characterize the material definitions [3]; Flexion-extension loads (up to 2 Nm, each mode) were
applied to the spinal column and moment-rotation responses were
however, relatively little research has been conducted to incorporate
obtained for every segment of the asymmetric disc model. They were
accurate geometry of the components such as the intervertebral disc,
compared with experimental data [16]. The responses of the
the main transmitter of the load between vertebral bodies. Numerous
symmetric disc model under flexion-extension for C5-C6 disc segment
existing FE models of the cervical spine have relied on definitions
were compared with the asymmetric disc model. FE preprocessor
similar to the lumbar spine. These models have represented the
ANSA 16.1.0 (BETA CAE Systems S. A.) was used to generate the
annulus fibrosus as concentric layers of laminae.
model and LS-DYNA R8.1.0 (LSTC) was used to solve the model.
Microdissection and morphological studies of the human cervical
spine have shown that the annulus has a crescent shape in the anterior
region which tapers laterally and forms a thin layer posteriorly [4]– RESULTS
The thickness of the anterior annulus in the disc FE mesh, on an
[6]. The crescent shape of annulus imparts asymmetry to the
average, was three times the posterior thickness at the mid-sagittal
disc. The effects of the asymmetry on flexion and extension responses
section (Fig. 2). The asymmetric and crescent shape of the annulus
have not been addressed. Therefore, the objective of the current study
was modeled by implementing a C-type mesh transition in the lateral
was to develop a cervical spine FE model with accurate geometrical
sides (Fig. 1). The mesh quality evaluations showed that 95% of
definitions of the disc, validate its moment-rotation characteristics
hexahedral elements and 91.5% of quadrilateral elements had an
under flexion-extension using human cadaver experimental data, and
aspect ratio less than 5 and 3, respectively, and 94.9% of hexahedral
determine the effects of asymmetry due to disc geometry.
elements and 99.65% of quadrilateral elements had a Jacobian value of
higher than 0.6.
METHODS
The FE model of the C2-C7 spinal column was developed
using a mapping block-based hexahedral meshing technique [7]. The
mesh was generated on geometry segmented from computed
tomography images of a mid-size male spine. The soft tissues
definitions included intervertebral discs (annulus fibrosus and nucleus
pulposus), facet joints (articular cartilage, capsular ligaments, fluid),
and ligaments (anterior longitudinal, posterior longitudinal,
ligamentum flavum, and interspinous). Mapping block techniques
were used to generate meshes for soft tissues also. Element types and
material properties are given (Table 1). The mesh quality was Figure 1: (Left) Top view of IVD, showing sagittal and coronal
evaluated using the aspect ratio and Jacobian. The thresholds for the planes at which the annulus fibrosus boundaries were measured
aspect ratio of hexahedral and quadrilateral elements were 5 and 3. (Right) C2-C7 FE model
The threshold for the Jacobian was 0.6 for solid and shell elements. The moment-rotation responses of all the segments (Fig. 3) for
The anterior heights of discs were greater than posterior the asymmetric model were within the experimental corridors (mean
heights. The spinal column had normal lordosis, typical of a healthy ±1 standard deviation), exhibiting non-linear response. The responses
spine. The extent of the annulus and nucleus boundaries was defined were stiffer in extension than flexion. The response of the asymmetric
based on measurements at two sagittal (SP1 and SP2), and two coronal disc model was stiffer than the symmetric model by approximately
planes (CP1 and CP2) (Fig.1) [5]. The resulting asymmetric mesh was 30% in extension, without considerable change in flexion. The
compared with in-house cryomicrotome images of sagittal and coronal patterns of the von Mises stresses in the endplates were also different
sections of healthy cervical spines. A concentric-symmetric disc was between the two disc models (Fig. 4).
meshed to compare the responses between the two geometries.

Figure 2: (Left) Crymicrotome image at mid-sagittal plane, and
(Right) Mid-sagittal cross section of FE model
Figure 3: Moment rotation FE response curves (red), compared
with experimental response corridors (shaded)
Figure 4: Comparison of von-Mises stress in the endplates during
extension: (Left) symmetric disc (Right) asymmetric disc
DISCUSSION
It is not uncommon to extrapolate findings from studies of lumbar
disc to cervical disc. However, loading conditions on the cervical
spine and the pathologies that affect it are different from that from the
lumbar spine. As relative motions between two vertebrae are dictated
by the intervening soft tissues, their accurate geometrical
representations are necessary to obtain realistic outputs. It is known
from cadaver experiments that the response of a healthy cervical
segment in extension is stiffer than in flexion [16]. This can be
attributed to two factors: the asymmetry of the disc and engagement of
facet joints. The moment-rotation response curves of previous models
View publication stats
lack the asymmetric response [1], [3], especially at lower magnitudes
of extension moments where disc is the major load-sharing component
[12]. The comparison between asymmetric and symmetric annulus
fibrosus demonstrated a considerable difference in the extension
response. Therefore, it is important to simulate the asymmetry of the
annulus fibrosus in future FE models of the cervical spine.
In vivo studies have shown that strains and other internal
responses are region-specific: posterior-lateral region usually exhibits
higher magnitudes [17]–[19]. This pattern was observed in the current
study. The displacement of the nucleus pulposus posteriorly in the
asymmetric disc also changed the endplate stress distribution pattern.
Anatomically accurate material distributions in the different disc
regions would ensure realistic outputs from models.
Using mapping block-based mesh generation technique for both
hard and soft tissues ensured common nodal connectivity between the
IVDs and adjacent vertebrae. This meshing technique eliminated the
need for contact definitions, reducing non-linearity and resulting in
better model stability. Hexahedral mesh generated using mapping
blocks also had good mesh quality, as seen from the element quality
measures. The use of the C-type mesh transition to implement thinner
posterior annulus fibrosus helped to avoid small elements in the
posterior, increasing computational efficiency.
In summary, a FE model of the human C2-C7 spinal column with
anatomically accurate disc geometry was developed using a mapping
block-based meshing technique. Moment-rotation responses of all
segments were within the human cadaver experimental corridors, and
non-linear under loading. The responses of all spine segments were
asymmetric in flexion and extension modes. This study has shown the
need to incorporate accurate disc geometry in cervical spine FE
models to obtain realistic responses. Such models will assist better
delineation of load-sharing under different modes, and for different
components.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This material is the result of work supported with resources
and use of facilities at the Zablocki VA Medical Center (ZVAMC),
Milwaukee, Wisconsin; the Department of Neurosurgery at the
Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW), W81XWH-16-1-0010. The
authors are part time employees of the ZVAMC. Views expressed in
this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the
funding organizations.
REFERENCES
[1] M. B. Panzer et al., Med. Eng.Phy. vol. 33, no. 9, 2011.
[2] J. Östh et al., J. Biomech. Eng., vol. 138, no. 6, 2016.
[3] T. Mustafy et al., J. Biomech., vol. 47, no. 12, 2014.
[4] S. Mercer et al., Spine, vol. 24, no. 7, Apr. 1999.
[5] J. Tonetti et al., Surg. Radiol. Anat., vol. 27, no. 3, Aug. 2005.
[6] K. M. Browne et al., J. Neurosurg. Spine, vol. 12, no. 3, 2010.
[7] K. H. Shivanna et al., Comput. Aided Des., vol. 42, no. 12,
[8] D. L. Kopperdahl et al., J. Biomech., vol. 31, no. 7, 1998.
[9] D. T. Reilly et al., J. Biomech., vol. 8, no. 6, 1975.
[10] N. Yoganandan et al., Bone, vol. 39, no. 2, 2006.
[11] S. Ebara et al., Spine, vol. 21, no. 4. 1996.
[12] M. B. Panzer et al., J. Biomech., vol. 42, no. 4, Mar. 2009.
[13] J. J. Cassidy et al., Connect. Tissue Res., vol. 23, no. 1,
[14] J. C. Iatridis et al., J. Orthop. Res., vol. 15, no. 2, Mar. 1997.
[15] S. Kumaresan et al., J. Biomech., vol. 31, no. 4, Apr. 1998.
[16] J. A. Wheeldon et al., J. Biomech., vol. 39, no. 2, Jan. 2006.
[17] W. Anderst et al., Ann. Biomed. Eng., vol. 44, no. 5, 2016.
[18] S. Matsunaga et al., Spine, vol. 24, no. 7, Apr. 1999.
[19] S. Ito et al., Eur. Spine J., vol. 14, no. 4, 2005.