During trauma resulting from impacts and blast waves, sinusoidal waves

permeate the brain and cranial arterial tissue, both non-homogeneous biological tissues with high fluid contents. The experimental shear stress response to sinusoidal translational shear deformation at 1 Hz and 25% strain amplitude and either 0% or 33% compression is compared for rat brain tissue and bovine aortic tissue. Both tissues exhibit Mullins effect in shear. Harmonic wavelet decomposition, a novel application to the mechanical response of these tissues, shows significant 1 Hz and 3 Hz components. The 3 Hz component magnitude in brain tissue, which is much larger than in aortic tissue, may correlate to interstitial fluid induced drag forces that decrease on subsequent cycles perhaps because of damage resulting in easier fluid movement. The fluid may cause the quasiperiodic, viscoelastic behavior of brain tissue. The mechanical response differences under impact may cause shear damage between arterial and brain connections.