Effects of myocardial constraint on the passive mechanical behaviors of the coronary vessel wall

摘要

all blood vessels receive some perivascular constraint from the surrounding tissues. For example, the large epicardial coronary arteries and veins span the surface of the heart and gradually submerge into the myocardium, which exerts tethering or compression on the vessels during the cardiac cycle. The deformation and stress-strain distribution of these vessels are thus affected by major factors, including geometry, the passive and active properties of the vessel wall, and tethering conditions on the vessel-myocardium boundary. A number of experimental and theoretical studies provide a wealth of data for quantification of the passive (15, 52, 53) and active (17, 29, 38) mechanical properties of coronary arteries and other vessels. In these largely in vitro studies, the surrounding tissue was dissected, and the mechanical contribution of perivascular constraint was not considered.