A biomechanical system for measuring the three dimensional kinematics of the cervical spine during impact

Four intact human head-neck complexes were fixed between T1 and T2. Reflective target markers were inserted into the exposed cervical vertebra to document the 3D kinematics of the cervical spine and head. A dynamic pulse was delivered to the specimen using a mini-sled pendulum apparatus. Each specimen was examined in five different orientations and with two different pulses, for a total of tens trials. Cervical spine motion was recorded from two high-speed cine cameras. 3D reconstruction of the markers was computed using a triangulation software routine. Preliminary analysis of camera images show that the system is sufficient for high-speed analysis.