A new multi-scale simulation model of the circulation: from cells to system

Abstract

We developed a comprehensive cell model that simulates the sequential cellular events from membrane excitation to contraction in the human ventricle. By combining this ventricular cell model with a lumped circulation model, we examined how blood pressure dynamics in the ventricle and aorta are related to the cellular processes. To convert cell contraction into ventricular pressure using Laplace's law, we introduced a simple geometric model of a ventricle: one shaped like a thin-walled hemisphere. The force of contraction of a single cell induces tension in the hemispheric ventricular wall, which generates the ventricular and aortic pressures in the lumped circulation model. The time courses of the hemodynamic properties, as well as the volume–pressure trajectory of the left ventricle, were well reproduced. Our multi-scale cardiovascular model, which covers from cardiac cells to the circulatory system, simulates the typical characteristics of heart mechanics, such as the pressure–volume relationship, stroke volume and the effect of the increased maximum free calcium concentration on cardiovascular hemodynamics. To test the cell-circulation coupling characteristics of the model, we simulated the effects of a decrease in L -type calcium channel conductance (cell level) on left ventricular pressure (system level). The variation due to different pacing frequencies for myocyte excitation was also investigated to assess the effects of heart rate on cardiac cells and the circulatory system.