Traumatic brain injury ( TBI ) has caused serious economic and social burdens, but due to its heterogeneity, there is no effective treatment. In TBI with different severity, diffuse axonal injury (DAI) incidenceis high. The investigation on DAI will contribute to the diagnosis and treatment of TBI. In this study, the classification of TBI and the research status of DAI were summarized. The method to judge the severity of TBI and DAI, and animal experimental models and related injury criteria and thresholds were reviewed. The result show that DAI is mainly generated by rotational acceleration and it is related to angular acceleration, angular velocity and duration. Several TBI animal models can induce the pathology of DAI, and inertial rotation models which can produce only rotational acceleration have been developed. However, these models are instantaneous rotation models, and the rotation duration is uncontrollable, thus a longer duration is impossible, and DAI severity under long rotational motion cannot be studied. The study proposes that a new rotation animal model which can control rotation duration should be developed. The development of the animal model and investigation on pathomechanism of the model will contribute to the prevention and treatment of DAI.