Kharche, S. R. | bioRxiv Science

bioRxiv2018

Computational assessment of blood flow heterogeneity in dialysis patients’ cardiac ventricles

Dialysis prolongs life but augments cardiovascular mortality. Imaging data suggests that dialysis increases myocardial blood flow (BF) heterogeneity, but its causes remain poorly understood. A biophysical model of human coronary vasculature was used to explain the imaging observations, and highlight causes of coronary BF heterogeneity.\n\nPost-dialysis CT images from patients under control, pharmacological stress (adenosine), therapy (cooled dialysate), and adenosine and cooled dialysate conditions were obtained. The data presented disparate phenotypes. To dissect vascular mechanisms, a 3D human coronary vasculature model was implemented. Simulations were performed to investigate the effects of altered aortic pressure and blood vessel diameters on myocardial BF heterogeneity which was quantified using relative dispersion, fractal dimension, and transmural BF distribution.\n\nImaging showed that stress and therapy potentially increased mean and total BF, while reducing heterogeneity. BF histograms of one patient showed multi-modality. Using the model, it was found that total coronary BF increased as coronary perfusion pressure (CPP) was increased. BF heterogeneity was differentially affected by large or small vessel blocking. BF heterogeneity was found to be inversely related to small blood vessel diameters. Simulation of large artery stenosis indicates that BF became heterogeneous (increase relative dispersion) and gave multi-modal histograms. The total transmural BF as well as transmural BF heterogeneity reduced due to large artery stenosis, generating large patches of very low O_SCPCAPBFC_SCPCAP regions downstream. Blocking of arteries at various orders showed that blocking larger arteries results in multi-modal BF histograms and large patches of low BF, whereas smaller artery blocking results in augmented relative dispersion and fractal dimension. Transmural heterogeneity was also affected. Finally, the effects of augmented aortic pressure in the presence of blood vessel blocking shows differential effects on BF heterogeneity as well as transmural BF.\n\nImproved aortic blood pressure may lead to improved BF. Stress and therapy may be effective if they dilate small vessels. A potential cause for the observed complex BF distributions (multi-modal BF histograms) may indicate existing large vessel stenosis.\n\nThe intuitive BF heterogeneity methods used can be readily used in clinical studies. Further development of the model and methods will permit personalised assessment of patient BF status.

biophysics↗

bioRxiv2018

Computational assessment of arrhythmia potential in the heterogeneously perfused ventricle

BackgroundThe heterogeneity in the human left ventricle is augmented by heterogeneous perfusion defects in dialysis patients. We hypothesized that ischemic zones generated by heterogeneous perfusion are a cause of clinically observed post-dialysis arrhythmia. This preliminary study assessed the arrhythmia potential in a heterogeneously perfused 2D human ventricle computational model.\n\nAimOur aim was to ascertain a relationship between the number of ischemia zones and incidence of multiple re-entrant waves in a 2D model of the human ventricle.\n\nMethodsA human ventricle action potential model was modified to include the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) sensitive potassium current. Within ischemic zones, cell electrophysiological alterations due to ischemia were implemented as increased extracellular potassium, reduced intracellular ATP concentrations, as well as reduced upstroke current conductances. The cell model was incorporated into a spatial 2D model. The inter-cellular gap junction coupling was adjusted to simulate slow conduction in dialysis patient hearts. CT imaging data of the heart obtained during dialysis was analysed to estimate the approximate spatial size of ischemic zones. An ischemic border zone between the normal and central ischemic zones was implemented which had smoothly varying electrophysiological parameters. Arrhythmic potential was assessed using the paths of the centres of the re-entrant waves, called tip trajectories, and dominant frequency maps.\n\nResultsExtracellular potassium elevated the resting potential and IKATP reduced the action potentials duration. In the absence of ischemic zones, the propensity of the model to induce multiple re-entrant waves was low. The inclusion of ischemic zones provided the substrate for initiation of re-entrant wave fibrillation. The dominant frequency which measured the highest rate of pacing in the tissue increased drastically with the inclusion of ischemic zones, going from 3 Hz in the pre-dialysis state to over 6 Hz in the post-dialysis state. Re-entrant wave tip numbers increased from 1 tip in the pre-dialysis case to 34 in the post-dialysis case, a 34 fold increase. The increase of tip number was found to be strongly correlated to tissue heterogeneity in terms of ischemic zone numbers. Computational factors limiting a more extensive simulation of cause-effect combinations were identified.\n\nConclusionsA dialysis session restores systemic homeostasis, but promotes deleterious arrhythmias. Structure-function mechanistic modelling will permit patient-specific assessment of health status. Such an effort is expected to lead to application of wider physical sciences methods in the improvement of the lives of critically ill patients. High performance computing is a crucial requirement for such mechanistic assessment of health status.

biophysics↗