Multiscale modelling of blood flow in cerebral microcirculation - Archive ouverte HAL
Article Dans Une Revue PLoS ONE Année : 2018

Multiscale modelling of blood flow in cerebral microcirculation

Résumé

Aging or cerebral diseases may induce architectural modifications in human brain microvascular networks, such as capillary rarefaction. Such modifications limit blood and oxygen supply to the cortex, possibly resulting in energy failure and neuronal death. Modelling is key in understanding how these architectural modifications affect blood flow and mass transfers in such complex networks. However, the huge number of vessels in the human brainÐtens of billionsÐprevents any modelling approach with an explicit architectural representation down to the scale of the capillaries. Here, we introduce a hybrid approach to model blood flow at larger scale in the brain microcirculation, based on its multiscale architecture. The capillary bed, which is a space-filling network, is treated as a porous medium and modelled using a homogenized continuum approach. The larger arteriolar and venular trees, which cannot be homogenized because of their fractal-like nature, are treated as a network of interconnected tubes with a detailed representation of their spatial organization. The main contribution of this work is to devise a proper coupling model at the interface between these two components. This model is based on analytical approximations of the pressure field that capture the strong pressure gradients building up in the capillaries connected to arterioles or venules. We evaluate the accuracy of this model for both very simple architectures with one arteriole and/or one venule and for more complex ones, with anatomically realistic tree-like vessels displaying a large number of coupling sites. We show that the hybrid model is very accurate in describing blood flow at large scales and further yields a significant computational gain by comparison with a classical network approach. It is therefore an important step towards large scale simulations of cerebral blood flow and lays the groundwork for introducing additional levels of complexity in the future.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
769d33246c7410b4d7963c000aa7be3e5217.pdf (7.94 Mo) Télécharger le fichier
Origine Fichiers éditeurs autorisés sur une archive ouverte

Dates et versions

hal-02391946 , version 1 (05-12-2023)

Identifiants

Citer

Myriam Peyrounette, Yohan Davit, Michel Quintard, Sylvie Lorthois. Multiscale modelling of blood flow in cerebral microcirculation. PLoS ONE, 2018, 13 (1), pp.e0189474. ⟨10.1371/journal.pone.0189474⟩. ⟨hal-02391946⟩
52 Consultations
11 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

More