Abstract
A marked interest has recently emerged regarding the analysis of the wall shear stress (WSS) vector field topological skeleton in cardiovascular flows. Based on dynamical system theory, the WSS topological skeleton is composed of fixed points, i.e., focal points where WSS locally vanishes, and unstable/stable manifolds, consisting of contraction/expansion regions linking fixed points. Such an interest arises from its ability to reflect the presence of near-wall hemodynamic features associated with the onset and progression of vascular diseases. Over the years, Lagrangian-based and Eulerian-based post-processing techniques have been proposed aiming at identifying the topological skeleton features of the WSS. Here, the theoretical and methodological bases supporting the Lagrangian- and Eulerian-based methods currently used in the literature are reported and discussed, highlighting their application to cardiovascular flows. The final aim is to promote the use of WSS topological skeleton analysis in hemodynamic applications and to encourage its application in future mechanobiology studies in order to increase the chance of elucidating the mechanistic links between blood flow disturbances, vascular disease, and clinical observations.
Highlights
Recent advances in medical imaging, modeling, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) have allowed the modeling of local hemodynamics in realistic, personalized cardiovascular models, fostering understanding of the association between local hemodynamics and the initiation and progression of vascular disease, and in a wider perspective, contributing to the translation of computational methods in real-world clinical settings to complement clinical information.It has long been recognized that hemodynamic factors regulate several aspects of vascular pathophysiology [1,2]
The final aim is to promote the use of wall shear stress (WSS) topological skeleton analysis in hemodynamic applications and to encourage its application in future mechanobiology studies in order to increase the chance of elucidating the mechanistic links between blood flow disturbances, vascular disease, and clinical observations
Based on the recent promising findings highlighting a link between WSS topological skeleton features and markers of vascular disease [17,18,19,20,21,24], the aim of this study is to encourage the application of WSS topological skeleton analysis to cardiovascular flows as an ad hoc instrument that is potentially able to further elucidate the mechanistic link between WSS and vascular pathophysiology
Summary
Recent advances in medical imaging, modeling, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) have allowed the modeling of local hemodynamics in realistic, personalized cardiovascular models, fostering understanding of the association between local hemodynamics and the initiation and progression of vascular disease, and in a wider perspective, contributing to the translation of computational methods in real-world clinical settings to complement clinical information. WSS is sensed through several vascular mechanosensors and biochemical machineries that regulate the expression of genes coding for extra- and intra-cellular proteins, playing a relevant role in the development, growth, remodeling, and maintenance of the vascular system [3,4] In this scenario, a multitude of WSS-based descriptors of the near-wall hemodynamics has been proposed over the years to provide potential indicators of flow disturbances associated with aggravating biological events. Based on dynamical system theory, the WSS topological skeleton is composed of a collection of fixed points, i.e., focal points where WSS locally vanishes, and unstable/stable manifolds, consisting of contraction/expansion regions linking fixed points Such an interest arises from the ability of WSS topological skeleton features to reflect cardiovascular flow features like flow stagnation, separation and recirculation that are known to be promoting factors for vascular disease [2,17]. Based on the recent promising findings highlighting a link between WSS topological skeleton features and markers of vascular disease [17,18,19,20,21,24], the aim of this study is to encourage the application of WSS topological skeleton analysis to cardiovascular flows as an ad hoc instrument that is potentially able to further elucidate the mechanistic link between WSS and vascular pathophysiology
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