Experimental Study of Hemodynamics in the Circle of Willis

The Circle of Willis (CoW) is a ring like structure located at the base of brain, which is composed of a single anterior communicating artery (ACoA), paired anterior cerebral arteries (ACAs), paired internal carotid arteries (ICAs), paired posterior communicating arteries (PCoAs), paired posterior cerebral arteries (PCAs), paired vertebral arteries (VAs) and a single basilar artery (BA). It is the main cerebral blood perfusion pathway and provides an important collateral channel in patients with severe carotid or vertebral artery disease. Over 50% of stroke cases are related to the stenosis of arteries in the CoW, so the detailed information of the cerebral hemodynamics under different pathology situations is important for a variety of clinical applications. Numerous experimental studies have been performed on this field from different perspectives, include the mechanism of stenosis in the CoW [1], risk assessment of cerebral aneurysm [2] and the impact of pathological variations on the flow distribution [3]. However, none of these researches focus on the influence of ICA stenosis rates on cerebral perfusion and the specific collateral mechanism of the Circle of Willis under such situations. In this paper, an experimental study on cerebral blood perfusion and the collateral mechanism under a series of ICA stenosis rates was carried out.