Speakers
Description
The brain is a highly energy-demanding organ that requires an adequate supply of oxygen and nutrients, which is maintained through cerebral blood flow autoregulation. The vascular myogenic tone is an intrinsic regulatory mechanism that enables the vascular wall to respond to mechanical forces induced by changes in luminal blood pressure, limiting blood flow fluctuations [1, 2]. In the current work, we introduce a computational framework to simulate myogenically autoregulated blood flow in cerebral microcirculation. This framework comprises integrated multi-physics components to characterise the underline mechanisms, including cellular signalling, vascular wall contractility, blood flow dynamics, and biphasic
blood rheology. Furthermore, this framework accounts for the heterogeneity of myogenic tone across different vessel types. Besides, a pipeline was developed that employs an optimisation approach to generate optimal boundary conditions based on available experimental data of blood flow and pressure. Results show that the proposed framework's prediction of blood flow distribution and red blood cell velocity in cerebral micro-networks
lies within the in vivo measurements range. The proposed computational framework complements the clinical investigation and, together, can be adapted to provide insights into the haemodynamics of cerebral microcirculation.
Bibliography
@article{fjorbak2025brain,
title={Brain precapillary sphincters modulate myogenic tone in adult and aged mice},
author={Fjorbak, Christina L and Kutuzov, Nikolay P and Groves, Teddy and Lauritzen, Martin and Grubb, S{\o}ren},
journal={GeroScience},
pages={1--20},
year={2025},
publisher={Springer}
}
@article{jackson2021myogenic,
title={Myogenic tone in peripheral resistance arteries and arterioles: the pressure is on!},
author={Jackson, William F},
journal={Frontiers in physiology},
volume={12},
pages={699517},
year={2021},
publisher={Frontiers Media SA}
}
