Cardiovascular diseases remain one of the most diffused causes of death worldwide. The etiology of such pathologies is linked with different physical / biological phenomena. To understand blood circulation and the corresponding diseases, the vessel walls, the vascular system morphology, and the driving forces from pumping of the heart must be taken into consideration. In this context, tissue biomechanics, together with cardiovascular fluid-dynamics, are at the basis of the formation and progression of some anomalies like abdominal/ascending thoracic aortic aneurysms, cerebral aneurysms, arteriosclerotic plaques, valvular pathologies and heart infarction. It is well established that the cardiovascular tissues, ranging from small/large vessels (i.e., coronaries, veins, aorta) to myocardial walls, material properties are strongly linked with internal microstructures. Very recent developments in the field of clinical imaging like Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Computed Tomography (CT) have opened the way for in-vivo evaluation of arterial/cardiac kinematics and microstructure.
The interaction of biomechanical factors is often complex for cardiovascular diseases, and it still requires a deep analysis to be understood. The research tools of engineering and informatics have been proven to be reliable to deepen the knowledge on cardiovascular pathologies etiology. In particular, experimental setups for soft tissue biomechanical characterization, numerical and image-based techniques are all valid methods for the exploration of cardiovascular biomechanics, including arterial, myocardial and venous tissues. The current state of the art still has needs in this context. In particular, the aim of research is to fill the gap between clinics and engineering/informatics research. Open challenges include:
• Reliable methods for in-vivo estimation of cardiovascular tissue biomechanics via imaging techniques
• Definition of correlations between disease development and biomechanical features of the cardiovascular tissues
• New experimental tools for ex-vivo tissue characterization to correlate micro- and macro- structural responses
• Fast and reliable numerical methods to be used in clinics to access patient-specific biomechanical data
With the proposed Research Topic, we aim at gathering all the most recent advances concerning the biomechanical analysis of cardiovascular structures by including both numerical and experimental approaches. In this Research Topic, we welcome manuscripts addressing the following themes but are not limited to:
• Numerical techniques for the estimation of biomechanical features like strain, stress and stiffness from in-vivo data
• New imaging techniques and in-vivo data processing algorithms for kinematics and biomechanical analysis of cardiovascular structures
• Experimental techniques for biomechanical testing of ex-vivo cardiovascular tissues, correlating the microstructural and the mechanical aspect of pathologies
• Development of Microstructure-based constitutive models for healthy/diseased arterial, venous, heart and valvular tissues
We would like to acknowledge Dr Emanuele Vignali who has acted as coordinator and has contributed to the preparation of the proposal for this Research Topic.