Investigation of effects of cerebrovascular morphogy on hemodynamics using image-based simulations

In the present study, an image-based simulation system has been developed in order to investigate the relationship between vascular morphology and cerebral hemodynamics. The simulation system consists of medical image based geometric modeling, grid generation, finite element fluid simulation, and scientific visualization. The paper has developed an effective smoothing method for over-tessellated polygonal surfaces by combining polygon reduction and smoothing techniques. The simulations are conducted for 19 cases of the bifurcation segment of middle cerebral artery branches. The multiple regression analysis is performed based based on 19 cases to examine the effects of cerebrovascular morphology on wall shear stresses. As a result, diamter of MCA, ratio of diamter of branching artery to that of MCA, and bifurcation angle between MCA and the branching artery are important morphological factors in determining the maximum wall shear stresses.