INTRODUCTION Viscoelastic properties indicate structural alterations in biological tissues at multiple scales with high sensitivity. Magnetic Resonance Elastography (MRE) is a novel technique that directly visualizes and quantitatively measures biomechanical tissue properties in vivo. MRE recently revealed that early relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS) is associated with a global decrea...

Many biological tissues are viscoelastic, behaving as elastic solids on short timescales and fluids on long timescales. This collective mechanical behaviour enables and helps to guide pattern formation and tissue layering. Here, we investigate the mechanical properties of three-dimensional tissue explants from zebrafish embryos by analysing individual cell tracks and macroscopic mechanical resp...

The viscoelastic properties of tissues are altered during pathogenesis of numerous diseases and can therefore be a useful indicator of disease status and progression. Several elastography studies have utilized the mechanical frequency response and the resonance frequencies of tissue samples to characterize their mechanical properties. However, using the resonance frequency as a source of mechan...

Recent advances in contact mechanics have formalized approaches to distinguish between poroelastic and viscoelastic deformation regimes via load relaxation experiments, and to simultaneously extract the mechanical and transport properties of gels at the macroscale. As poroelastic relaxation times scale quadratically with contact diameter, contact radii and depths on the mm scale can require hou...

Periodontal ligament is a thin layer of soft tissue that connects root of a tooth to the surrounding alveolar bone. These ligaments play an important role in initiating tooth movement when loads are applied to teeth with orthodontic appliances. The majority of such soft tissues exhibit as viscoelastic bodies or have a time-dependent behavior. Due to the viscoelastic behavior of the periodontal ...

Abstract Complex biological tissues are highly viscoelastic and dynamic. Efforts to repair or replace cartilage, tendon, muscle, vasculature using materials that facilitate regeneration have been ongoing for decades. However, possess the mechanical, chemical, resorption characteristics necessary recapitulate these difficult mimic synthetic resorbable biomaterials. Herein, we report a series of ...

This study demonstrates a novel approach to characterizing hydrated bone's viscoelastic behavior at lamellar length scales using dynamic indentation techniques. We studied the submicron-level viscoelastic response of bone tissue from two different inbred mouse strains, A/J and B6, with known differences in whole bone and tissue-level mechanical properties. Our results show that bone having a hi...

Collagen fibres form cross-helical, cross-ply or quasi-random feltworks in extensible connective tissues; strain-induced reorientation of these networks gives rise to the non-linear mechanical properties of connective tissue at finite strains. Such tissues are also generally viscoelastic (i.e. display time-dependent properties). The hypothesis that time-dependent reorientation of collagen fibre...

Ultrasound elastography enables in vivo measurement of the mechanical properties of living soft tissues in a non-destructive and non-invasive manner and has attracted considerable interest for clinical use in recent years. Continuum mechanics plays an essential role in understanding and improving ultrasound-based elastography methods and is the main focus of this review. In particular, the mech...