Abstract
Growth is a significant factor that results in deformations of tubular organs, and particular deformations associated with growth enable tubular organs to perform certain physiological functions. Configuring growth profiles that achieve particular deformation patterns is critical for analyzing potential pathological conditions and for developing corresponding clinical treatments for tubular organ dysfunctions. However, deformation-targeted growth is rarely studied. In this article, the human cervix during pregnancy is studied as an example to show how cervical thinning and dilation are generated by growth. An advanced hyperelasticity theory called morphoelasticity is employed to model the deformations, and a growth tensor is used to represent growth in three principle directions. The computational results demonstrate that both negative radial growth and positive circumferential growth facilitate thinning and dilation. Modeling such mixed growth represents an advancement beyond commonly used uniform growth inside tissues to study tubular deformations. The results reveal that complex growth may occur inside tissues to achieve certain tubular deformations. Integration of further biochemical and cellular activities that initiate and mediate such complex growth remains to be explored.
Highlights
Deformations of soft-tissue tubular organs (TOs) are common in human bodies
Internal tissue growth significantly contributes to organ deformations
Growth is employed as an input to generate deformations which are analyzed for normal physiological alterations or organ malfunctions [28, 29]
Summary
Deformations of soft-tissue tubular organs (TOs) are common in human bodies. Tubular organ deformations (TODs) significantly facilitate organ function in the transport of air, fluid, waste, or other materials through the lumens of TOs; typical TODs include, but are not limited to, deformations of blood vessels [1, 2], lymph vessels [3, 4], air ways [5, 6], esophagi [7, 8], human cervices [9, 10], colons [11, 12], and urethrae [13]. Soft-tissue organs deform themselves as part of normal physiological operations [31], and specific TODs are generated to achieve particular functional needs of the TOs [32]. Because of the complexity of tissue composition, different growth may occur inside TOs in different morphometric dimensions to generate needed types of deformations [37] Such processes can result in counter-intuitive outcomes that more deeply reveal complicated relationships in deformation-targeted growth. The cervix remodeling/ripening in pregnancy is an important and complex process to prepare for a smooth birth during parturition This process is initiated and mediated by many biochemical and cellular factors associated with changes to the organ during cervical evolution [45, 47].
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