John Peters
Research Mentor(s): David Nordsletten
Mentor Department: Biomedical Engineering
Authors: John Peters, Javiera Jilberto, David A Nordsletten
Session: Session 5 (2:00pm – 2:50pm)
Presentation Type: Poster 79
Abstract
Computational models of cardiac mechanics have emerged as an effective way to analyze how biomechanics are related to disease. More specifically, computational models enable the analysis of the heart mechanics under loading conditions that cannot be measured otherwise. These conditions include stress and strain measurements in the direction of the heart muscle fiber, which are thought to be key indicators of myocardium injury and disease. Researchers have developed a variety of geometries to perform finite element analysis of the cardiac mechanics on, ranging from a simple sphere to a detailed four chamber model of the heart. Although the four chamber model provides a more anatomically realistic representation of the heart, it requires significantly more effort to create the anatomical model and complete the mechanics simulations compared to the biventricular model. In this study, we aim to study and quantify how four-chamber and biventricular simulations differ. Specifically, we look to understand the features that are missed when using a simpler biventricular geometry compared to the four-chamber geometry. This is a key knowledge that will help researchers decide the best model to use depending on their specific aim. To do this we generated biventricular and four-chamber cardiac models of the same patient from computational tomography images. Then, we simulated the cardiac cycle under different boundary conditions and loading forces in each geometry. After the simulations were run, key cardiac values including torsion, elongation, end-diastolic volume and pressure, and end-systolic volume and pressure were collected. The differences between the biventricular and four-chamber meshes were quantified through the data collection. Initial findings have indicated a similar ability for each geometry to simulate the pressure and volume values of a cardiac cycle.
