In this paper, we develop a mathematical model of blood circulation in the liver lobule. We aim to find the pressure and flux distributions within a liver lobule. We also investigate the effects of changes in pressure that occur following a resection of part of the liver, which often leads to high pressure in the portal vein. The liver can be divided into functional units called lobules. Each lobule has a hexagonal cross-section, and we assume that its longitudinal extent is large compared with its width. We consider an infinite lattice of identical lobules and study the two-dimensional flow in the hexagonal cross-sections. We model the sinusoidal space as a porous medium, with blood entering from the portal tracts (located at each of the vertices of the cross-section of the lobule) and exiting via the centrilobular vein (located in the center of the cross-section). We first develop and solve an idealized mathematical model, treating the porous medium as rigid and isotropic and blood as a Newtonian fluid. The pressure drop across the lobule and the flux of blood through the lobule are proportional to one another. In spite of its simplicity, the model gives insight into the real pressure and velocity distribution in the lobule. We then consider three modifications of the model that are designed to make it more realistic. In the first modification, we account for the fact that the sinusoids tend to be preferentially aligned in the direction of the centrilobular vein by considering an anisotropic porous medium. In the second, we account more accurately for the true behavior of the blood by using a shear-thinning model. We show that both these modifications have a small quantitative effect on the behavior but no qualitative effect. The motivation for the final modification is to understand what happens either after a partial resection of the liver or after an implantation of a liver of small size. In these cases, the pressure is observed to rise significantly, which could cause deformation of the tissue. We show that including the effects of tissue compliance in the model means that the total blood flow increases more than linearly as the pressure rises.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/1.4002563 | DOI Listing |
Radiology
January 2025
From the Department of Radiology, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Southern Medical University (Academy of Orthopedics, Guangdong Province), Guangzhou, China (W.L., L.S., R.Z., Y.Z.); and Medical Research Center, Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Zhongshan 2nd Rd, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou 510000, People's Republic of China (J.L., H.L., X.Z., F.X., T.S., K.L., L.N.).
Background Photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) can be used to detect strong absorption from endogenous and exogenous contrast material, making it promising for detailed structural and functional imaging of hepatic sinusoids, including dynamic visualization of permeability. Purpose To evaluate whether PAM-based quantitative parameters of liver function and integrity (lacunarity, blood oxygen saturation [Sao], and Evans blue [EB] permeability) are associated with histopathologic indexes of fibrosis in a mouse model. Materials and Methods Between October 2022 and July 2023, a total of 35 male C57BL/6 mice were included in this study and received intraperitoneal injection of carbon tetrachloride to establish mouse models of progressive liver fibrosis, with seven mice in each group.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS Biol
January 2025
Department of Internal Medicine, Teikyo University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
The unique architecture of the liver consists of hepatic lobules, dividing the hepatic features of metabolism into 2 distinct zones, namely the pericentral and periportal zones, the spatial characteristics of which are broadly defined as metabolic zonation. R-spondin3 (Rspo3), a bioactive protein promoting the Wnt signaling pathway, regulates metabolic features especially around hepatic central veins. However, the functional impact of hepatic metabolic zonation, regulated by the Rspo3/Wnt signaling pathway, on whole-body metabolism homeostasis remains poorly understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
January 2025
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA.
Advanced liver preservation strategies could revolutionize liver transplantation by extending preservation time, thereby allowing for broader availability and better matching of transplants. However, developing new cryopreservation protocols requires exploration of a complex design space, further complicated by the scarcity of real human livers to experiment upon. We aim to create computational models of the liver to aid in the development of new cryopreservation protocols.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhys Med Biol
January 2025
North Carolina State University, Fitts Woolard Hall, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27695-7908, UNITED STATES.
Motivated by elastography that utilizes tissue mechanical properties as biomarkers for liver disease, with the eventual objective of quantitatively linking histopathology and bulk mechanical properties, we develop a micromechanical modeling approach to capture the effects of fat and collagen deposition in the liver. Specifically, we utilize computational homogenization to convert the microstructural changes in hepatic lobule to the effective viscoelastic modulus of the liver tissue, i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFZhongguo Shi Yan Xue Ye Xue Za Zhi
December 2024
Blood Disease Institute, Xuzhou Medical University,Xuzhou 221000, Jiangsu Province, China.
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