A Contemporary Look at Biomechanical Models of Myocardium

Abstract

Understanding and predicting the mechanical behavior of myocardium under healthy and pathophysiological conditions are vital to developing novel cardiac therapies and promoting personalized interventions. Within the past 30 years, various constitutive models have been proposed for the passive mechanical behavior of myocardium. These models cover a broad range of mathematical forms, microstructural observations, and specific test conditions to which they are fitted. We present a critical review of these models, covering both phenomenological and structural approaches, and their relations to the underlying structure and function of myocardium. We further explore the experimental and numerical techniques used to identify the model parameters. Next, we provide a brief overview of continuum-level electromechanical models of myocardium, with a focus on the methods used to integrate the active and passive components of myocardial behavior. We conclude by pointing to future directions in the areas of optimal form as well as new approaches for constitutive modeling of myocardium.

A Systematic Review of Real-Time Medical Simulations with Soft-Tissue Deformation: Computational Approaches, Interaction Devices, System Architectures, and Clinical Validations

“…Elastic, hyperelastic, and viscoelastic laws were commonly used in the developed real-time simulation systems for the upper/lower limb muscle, facial muscle, liver, and skin tissues. It is important to note that more complex constitutive laws such as electromechanical models could be used in general for modeling the skeletal muscle [68] or myocardium [72,73]. However, these complex models deal with additional computational need and requirements to reach a real-time ability for medical simulation systems.…”

An Introductory Overview of Image-Based Computational Modeling in Personalized Cardiovascular Medicine

“…This is modeled by assuming that the myocardium is an isotropic linear elastic tissue. The general formulation of passive stress (i.e., Cauchy stress) can be expressed by Avazmohammadi et al (2019):…”

Functional Grading of a Transversely Isotropic Hyperelastic Model with Applications in Modeling Tricuspid and Mitral Valve Transition Regions

“…Phenomenological models typically utilize anatomically relevant empirical observations without an explicit consideration for the microstructural contribution of the tissue constituents. For instance, transversely isotropic (TI) phenomenological models aggregate the hierarchical fiber microstructure into a lumped fiber representation inside an isotropic matrix [11]. These approaches have been used to model mitral valve (MV) mechanics [12,13], biaxial behavior of the myocardium [14] and bio-prosthetic human valves [15].…”

“…A similar approach of piecewise modeling of constituent cardiac tissue is presented in [27,28]. For a comprehensive review of biomechanical continuum modeling of cardiac tissue, readers are referred to [11,29,30].…”