No label defined (Q4350091)

In this chapter, we outline our current understanding of the anatomy and microstructure of the heart, and present an anatomically accurate finite element model, developed at the University of Auckland, which represents the most important aspects of this morphology. An important feature of the model is that it incorporates a set of three axes which reflect the microstructure at any point within the ventricular myocardium. Although the three axes are defined to be orthogonal in an unloaded reference state (zero ventricular transmural pressures), alterations in heart shape during ventricular filling or contraction are associated with changes in the nodal coordinates of the finite element model and the material axes naturally follow these shape changes -- with the result that the axes are not orthogonal in the deformed state. These spatially varying material axes may be used to define an orthotropic conductivity tensor for studies of ventricular mechanics. We show how equations governing the mechanical and electrical behaviour of the heart may be formulated in a finite element computational model based on the anatomical model described here. We start by reviewing our current understanding of cardiac anatomy -- the fibrous muscular architecture of the ventricles, the sheet-like structure of cardiac muscle and the organization of the connective tissue which binds the contractile cardiac muscle cells (myocytes) together. The mathematical model of cardiac anatomy is developed by first establishing appropriate coordinate systems and describing in detail the finite element technique and data fitting procedures. These techniques are then used to derive an anatomically accurate finite model of ventricular geometry, muscle fibre orientations and myocardinal sheet orientations. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0867.92011].