Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
8
pubmed:dateCreated
2010-7-9
pubmed:abstractText
Knowledge of normal fetal heart (FH) performance and development is crucial for evaluating and understanding how various congenital heart lesions may modify heart contractility during the gestational period. However, since biomechanical models of FH are still lacking, structural approaches proposed to describe the mechanical behavior of the adult human heart cannot be used to model the evolution of the FH. In this paper, a finite element model of the healthy FH wall is developed to quantify its mechanical properties during the gestational period. An idealized thick-walled ellipsoidal shape was used to model the left ventricle (LV). The diastolic LV geometry was reconstructed from in vivo ultrasound measurements performed on 24 normal FHs between 20 and 37 weeks of gestation. An anisotropic hyperelastic constitutive law describing the mechanical properties of the passive and active myocardium was used. The evolution of the mechanical properties of the normal LV myocardium during fetal growth was obtained by successfully fitting the ejection fraction predicted by the model to in vivo measurements. We found that only the active tension varies significantly during the gestational period, increasing linearly from 20 kPa (at 20 weeks) to 40 kPa (at 37 weeks of gestation). We propose a possible explanation of the increasing force-generating ability of the myocardial tissue during fetal heart development based on a combination of myocyte enlargement, differentiation, and proliferation kinetics.
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Aug
pubmed:issn
1521-6047
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Electronic
pubmed:volume
38
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
2702-15
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
2010
pubmed:articleTitle
Unraveling changes in myocardial contractility during human fetal growth: a finite element analysis based on in vivo ultrasound measurements.
pubmed:affiliation
Group of Structural Mechanics and Materials Modelling (GEMM), Aragón Institute of Engineering Research (I3A), Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain. fany@unizar.es
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Comparative Study, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't