Multiscale Modeling and Simulation of the Cardiac Fiber Architecture for DMRI

• Published in: IEEE transactions on biomedical engineering Vol. 59; no. 1; pp. 16 - 19
• Main Authors: Wang, Lihui, Zhu, Yuemin, Li, Hongying, Liu, Wanyu, Magnin, and Isabelle E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01-01-2012; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE); Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Subjects: Cardiac fiber architecture; Cell Polarity; Cell Size; Computer Science; Computer Simulation; Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Diffusion tensor imaging; diffusion tensor imaging (DTI); Humans; Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted - methods; Imaging, Three-Dimensional - methods; Magnetic resonance; Medical Imaging; Microscopy; Models, Anatomic; Models, Cardiovascular; multiscale simulation; myocyte modeling; Myocytes, Cardiac - cytology; Noise; Size measurement; Tensile stress; categ_st2i; Algorithms; Imagerie Coeur - Vaisseaux - Poumons; METISLAB; reseau_international
• ISSN: 0018-9294; 1558-2531
• DOI: 10.1109/TBME.2011.2166265

Cardiac fiber architecture plays an important role in the study of mechanical and electrical properties of the wall of the human heart, but still remains to be elucidated. This paper proposes to investigate, in a multiscale manner, how the arrangement patterns and morphological heterogeneity of cardiac myocytes influence the fibers orientation. To this end, different virtual cardiac fiber structures are modeled, and diffusion tensor imaging at multiple scales are simulated using the Monte Carlo method. The results show that the proposed modeling and simulation allow us to quantitatively describe the variation of the measured tissue properties (fiber orientation and fractional anisotropy) as a function of the observation scale.