A 3D simulation of the formation of primary platelet thrombi based on a hybrid computational model

Abstract

Abstract:Recently, the study of thrombosis simulation based on computational models has been one of the most popular research areas. In this paper, a 3D simulation method based on a hybrid model is proposed for platelet thrombus formation. The flow of platelets is modeled in a macroscale submodel using Navier-Stokes equations and the physiological processes such as adhesion and aggregation of platelets are modeled in a microscale submodel. In the adhesion and aggregation phases, the attraction of platelets due to blood coagulation factors (von Willebrand factor) is modeled using the external force, and the conversion from unstable aggregation to stable aggregation is modeled using the increase in local viscosity. The proposed model is implemented and is applied to the 3D simulation of platelet thrombus formation. The flow of platelets and the transformation from normal platelet to thrombus are well shown by the 3D view of the simulation. The velocity field and viscosity field are also rendered to observe their changes in the process of thrombus formation. In the simulation, as the increase in blood velocity, the primary thrombus grows rapidly before a velocity threshold, and then the growth rate decreases. It concurs with the experimental results in vivo.

A Computational Model of Thrombus Growth Based on Level Set Method

“…Among these models, the deformable platelets adhesion model [28] focused on the performance of platelet in adhesion, while the other 3 models focused on the progress of thrombus growth. The process of thrombus growth was modelled by particle accumulation in the hybrid thrombosis model [36]. And this progress was modelled by surface expansion driven by Gaussian-based function and distance regularization function in the proposed LSE based thrombosis model and the proposed DRLSE based thrombosis model, respectively.…”