title: Computational modeling of volumetric soft tissue growth: application to the cardiac left ventricle.
abstract: As an initial step to investigate stimulus-response relations in growth and remodeling (G&R) of cardiac tissue, this study aims to develop a method to simulate 3D-inhomogeneous volumetric growth. Growth is regarded as a deformation that is decomposed into a plastic component which describes unconstrained growth and an elastic component to satisfy continuity of the tissue after growth. In current growth models, a single reference configuration is used that remains fixed throughout the entire growth process. However, considering continuous turnover to occur together with growth, such a fixed reference is unlikely to exist in reality. Therefore, we investigated the effect of tissue turnover on growth by incrementally updating the reference configuration. With both a fixed reference and an updated reference, strain-induced cardiac growth in magnitude of 30% could be simulated. However, with an updated reference, the amplitude of the stimulus for growth decreased over time, whereas with a fixed reference this amplitude increased. We conclude that, when modeling volumetric growth, the choice of the reference configuration is of great importance for the computed growth.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands. jw.kroon@fys.unimaas.nl
authors.forename: Wilco
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Kroon
authors.forename: Tammo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Delhaas
authors.forename: Theo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Arts
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bovendeerd