Investigation of the Spatial Structure of the Microcirculation in a Capillary Bundle From Rat Spinotrapezius Muscle Tissue

The microcirculation in the fascia of rat spinotrapezius muscle is studied using a computational approach that accounts for the shear- and hematocrit-dependent rheology of blood [1]. The simulations are based on a realistic network reconstruction derived from microscopic images of the fascia. The model includes fundamental aspects about passive properties of microvessels [5] as well as active myogenic constriction in arterioles [2]. We also present the development of a software tool to perform a spatial analysis of the hemodynamic results. This tool provides local information about the flow properties within a spatial microvessel network map in order to optimize the comparison with experiments. A review can be found in [4].