Arteries and Algorithms: Computational physiological flow and arterial disease modelling

心血管疾病，包括动脉粥样硬化，几乎占西方世界死亡人数的50%。我们对动脉粥样硬化的原因和进展的了解相对有限，在许多情况下，诊断和治疗都需要侵入性的患者特异性技术。加深对与心血管疾病相关的生理因素的了解可能会导致治疗方面的重大进展，并提高诊断和预后的准确性。由于人类动脉网络中血流的复杂性，发展这种理解尤其困难。仅凭现有的医疗数据和专业知识是不可能理解这些问题的。数值方法的最新发展，包括更广泛使用计算模拟和可视化的机会，可以为患者特定成像数据，物理学和生物学之间提供必要的联系，为这种增加的理解提供平台。这些技术的使用可能会给医学科学和实践带来革命性的影响，就像过去40年来x射线、超声波和磁共振等成像方式所做的那样。这项研究计划的目的是，通过与血管生物学家、生理学家和外科医生的密切合作，开发一个能够捕捉生理和病理动脉网络的多尺度、分层耦合性质的模拟环境。研究计划集中在三个项目上，两个是生理的，结合了动脉网络的多尺度性质，一个是数值的：第一个项目将应用动脉分支的三维流体动力学建模，以提高对血液流动与动脉疾病（如动脉粥样硬化）因果关系的理解。第二个项目旨在使用一维简化模型来理解和模拟患者特定血管网络中的脉动流波形。第三个项目的重点是发展先进的数学和数值技术，例如不确定性建模和光谱/高压元素方法，以促进这种建模。

Cardiovascular disease, including atherosclerosis, accounts for almost 50% of deaths in the western world. Our understanding of the causes and progression of atherosclerosis is relatively limited and, in many cases, both diagnosis and treatment require invasive patient specific techniques.An enhanced understanding of the physiological factors related to cardiovascular disease would likely to lead to significant advances in treatment as well as increased accuracy in diagnosis and prognosis. Developing this understanding is particularly difficult because of the complexities of the flow in human arterial networks. These are impossible to understand using existing medical data and expertise alone.Recent developments in numerical methods including greater opportunities for wider use of computational simulation and visualisation can provide the necessary link between patient specific imaging data, physics and biology, to provide a platform for this increased understanding. The impact of the use of these techniques could revolutionise medical science and practice in the way imaging modalities such as X-ray, ultrasound and magnetic resonance have done in succession over the past 40 years.The aim of this research initiative is, through close collaboration with vascular biologists, physiologists and surgeons, to develop a simulation environment capable of capturing the multi-scale, hierarchically coupled nature of both physiological and pathological arterial networks. The research programme is focused around three projects, two physiological incorporating the multiscale nature of arterial networks and one numerical: The first project will apply modelling of the three-dimensional fluid dynamics at arterial branches to improve understanding of the causal relationship of blood flow to arterial disease such as atherosclerosis. The second project is directed towards understanding and modelling pulsatile flow wavefoms in patient specific vascular networks using one-dimensional reduced models. The third project focuses on development of advanced mathematical and numerical techniques, such as uncertainty modelling and spectral/hp element methods, to facilitate such modelling.