Computational Modeling Helps Tissue Engineered Heart Repair

Understanding the mechanical influence of scarred tissue is key to understand how ischemia affects the efficacy of the heart and consequently how supportive devices can help restoring the same. With medical images and nonlinear mechanics, we are developing a patient-specific heart model for tissue engineering. Employing the Holzapfel-Ogden rule we analyse how different types of infarcts impair the contractile function of the left ventricle using end diastolic and end systolic pressure volume relations as key markers. The patient specific tissue properties and hence model parameters play a crucial role on how much heart function will be compromised after an infarct, demanding an in-depth study of said parameter space, in order to develop patient-specific solutions. As such, we also investigate how engineered heart muscle tissue can restore healthy capacity targeting at clinical applications.