"Your brain takes up about eight/tenths of the space inside your skull. Most of the rest of the space is filled with blood vessels and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), a dense, clear, colorless substance. CSF flows around the outside of the brain, through a latticework of fibers. Working together, fluid and fibers form the brain's primary shock absorption system, protecting the brain from the bumps and jiggles of everyday life. But, if your head smacks into something with sufficient force, your brain can slosh around enough to tear some of the blood vessels, and even bruise the brain itself, if it hits the inside of the skull. That's how you can have brain damage without headbone damage.
What happens inside the head is this. Blood flows out of the broken blood vessels in the head and, sometimes, blood serum starts to leak out of the vessels in the damaged area of the brain. Swelling results, but, unlike the rest of the body, there's no place for the swelling to go. As the space inside the head decreases, there is less and less room for the flow of life-sustaining blood. Initially, the brain stops making CSF, and starts to reabsorb what is already there . . . the brain tries to create more space. The brain can even limit the amount of blood flowing to itself. But, if the damage is sufficient, the brain's compensatory mechanisms cannot keep up with the swelling. Intracranial pressure (ICP) starts to rise, and, as a result, the brain is squashed."
tadaaaa!
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