BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Wall shear stress (WSS) and pressure are important factors in the development of cerebral aneurysms. We aimed to develop a computational fluid dynamics simulator for flow in the complete circle of Willis to study the impact of variations in vessel radii and bifurcation angles on WSS and pressure on vessel walls. METHODS Blood flow was modeled with Navier-Stokes equation...

We examined 27 resin casts of foetal liver veins and found three types of connection between portal vein and portal sinus. The most frequent connection was endo-lateral (66.7%), when the end of the portal vein joins with the lateral wall of the portal sinus. The next type was latero-lateral (14.8%). In this type, the lateral walls of the portal sinus and the portal vein join together. The last ...

Retinal vessels from freshly enucleated human eyes were classified into three stages of the hyalinisation process. The distribution of collagen types I-VI within the vessel walls was studied ultrastructurally by immunogold labelling combined with the tissue preparation techniques of cryoultramicrotomy and London resin white embedding. Collagen types I, III, IV, V, and VI were found in large ves...

Platelets in hemostasis When blood vessels are injured so that they bleed, circulating platelets adhere to the damaged vessel walls and aggregate, so diminishing or arresting the hemorrhage. This interaction between platelets and vessel walls therefore has an easily demonstrable physiologic function. There is much clinical and experimental evidence that a deficiency or defect in circulating pla...

Platelets in hemostasis When blood vessels are injured so that they bleed, circulating platelets adhere to the damaged vessel walls and aggregate, so diminishing or arresting the hemorrhage. This interaction between platelets and vessel walls therefore has an easily demonstrable physiologic function. There is much clinical and experimental evidence that a deficiency or defect in circulating pla...

Shibata, Masahiro, Kairong Qin, Shigeru Ichioka, and Akira Kamiya. Vascular wall energetics in arterioles during nitric oxide-dependent and -independent vasodilation. J Appl Physiol 100: 1793–1798, 2006. First published February 23, 2006; doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.01632.2005.—The objective of this study was to evaluate whether the nitric oxide (NO) released from vascular endothelial cells would ...

Red blood cell (RBC) deformability has a significant impact on microcirculation by affecting cell dynamics. Despite previous studies that have demonstrated the margination of rigid cells and particles in vitro, little information is available on the in vivo margination of deformability-impaired RBCs under physiological flow and hematocrit conditions. Thus, in this study, we examined how the def...

BACKGROUND Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a genetic neuromuscular disorder that affects skeletal muscles and cardiac muscle tissue. In some cases, myocardial injury secondary to hypoxia can lead to dilative cardiomyopathy (DCM). A genetic defect in the dystrophin gene may increase the susceptibility of myocardium to hypoxia. Available data suggest that this may be caused by impaired secre...