Relating Wall Shear Stress, Bleb Formation and Rupture of Cerebral Aneurysms: Image-Based Modeling and Clinical Observations

Cerebral aneurysms are widely believed to form and grow as a result of the interactions of hemodynamics and wall mechano-biology. Researchers have used a variety of tools to study these complex multi-factorial mechanisms including animal, in vitro, and computational models. The goal of these experiments has been to approximate the in vivo environment so that theories about the natural history of brain aneurysms can be developed and tested in realistic systems. Studying the link between hemodynamics and clinical observations of aneurysm progression is necessary to reach an understanding of the relative importance of the different mechanisms involved in these processes [1]. The objective of our research is to investigate the possible relationship between wall shear stress (WSS) — which is known to regulate mechano-biological processes at the arterial wall — produced by different blood flow patterns and the evolution and rupture of cerebral aneurysms.