The purpose of this project is to build on the increasing expertise in adult head and neck injury at Duke University’s Injury and Orthopaedic Biomechanics Laboratory to provide new quantitative biomechanical data on the pediatric head and neck.  Currently, the research team is perfecting methodology to quantify the geometry of the pediatric head and neck and measuring the nondestructive viscoelastic tensile and flexion-extension structural properties to the pediatric cervical spine as a function of age. The methodologic approach involves quantification of the structural properties of the pediatric and adult skull to S-I,   A-P, and lateral loading and measuring the constitutive properties of the materials and articulations that comprise the pediatric skull.