Research on spinal joints

Experimental assessment of the physiological hoop strain in fresh conditions in order to extract a functional behaviour of the extrafibrillar matrix (5 bovine discs).

Mengoni M., Kayode O., Sikora S.N.F., Zapata Cornelio F.Y., Diane E. Gregory, & Wilcox R.K. (2017) Annulus fibrosus functional extrafibrillar and fibrous mechanical behaviour: experimental and computational characterisation, Royal Society Open Science, 4 (8), 170807 

Experimental characterisation of damage propagation in lamellae and interlamellar connections (26 specimens from 11 ovine discs)

Mengoni M., Jones A.C. & Wilcox R.K. (2016) Modelling the failure precursor mechanism of lamellar fibrous tissues, example of the annulus fibrosus, Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Material, v63, 265–272

Combined experimental and computational models to extract interlamellar stiffness in radial loading (27 specimens from 12 ovine discs)

Mengoni M., Luxmoore B.J., Jones A.C., Wijayathunga V.N., Broom N.D. & Wilcox R.K. (2015) Derivation of inter-lamellar behaviour of the intervertebral disc annulus. Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Material, v 48, 164–172 

in vitro testing and 3D imaging of bone-disc-bone units to measure intervertebral disc in vitro and validate direct Finite Element models (5 bovine discs)

Mengoni M., Zapata Cornelio F.Y., Wijayathunga V.N., & Wilcox R.K. (2021) Experimental and Computational Comparison of Intervertebral Disc Bulge for Specimen-Specific Model Evaluation Based on Imaging, Front Bioeng Biotechnol, 9:413

Direct-controlled Finite Element models of bone-disc-bone units able to replicate some population variation in intervertebral disc behaviour (12 bovine discs)

Mengoni M., Kayode O., Sikora S.N.F., Zapata Cornelio F.Y., Diane E. Gregory, & Wilcox R.K. (2017) Annulus fibrosus functional extrafibrillar and fibrous mechanical behaviour: experimental and computational characterisation, Royal Society Open Science, 4 (8), 170807 

First study that combines experimental testing and specimen-specific Finite Element model of FSU able to replicate some population variation (7 ovine discs).

This work, published in 2016, is still (Feb 2020) one of the only studies of direct validation with N>2 and with validation on facet joint contact.

Mengoni M., Vasiljeva K., Jones A.C., Tarsuslugil S., & Wilcox R.K. (2016) Subject-specific multi-validation of a finite element model of ovine cervical functional spinal units, Journal of Biomechanics, 49 (2), 259–266