In Silico Modelling and Analysis of the Electrical and Mechanical Properties of in Vitro Cardiac Cultures with Different Fiber Architectures

Abstract

Today, in vitro cardiac cultures are widely exploited to investigate several aspects of the electromechanical behavior of the cardiac tissue. Thus, new forecasts may derive from modelling their properties. In particular, in this paper, we focus on the fiber architecture of cultures, i.e. on the way cellular sarcomeres are locally oriented, when they are designed to be cardiac patches. We employ a three-dimensional model to simulate the bioelectrical activity and the biomechanics of a multilayered culture made of ventricular cells and with four possible architectures consisting of: i) random fibers in all cells; ii) randomly rotating fibers among layers; iii) structurally rotating fibers from the bottom layer to the top one; iv) parallel fibers among layers. Our results suggest that the best configuration for a patch may be the architecture with structurally rotating fibers, which is the one that most approaches the anisotropic structure of the in vivo heart, thanks to its better electrical and mechanical performances.