CAREER: Hemodynamic Mechanisms of Heart-Aorta-Brain Coupling with An Integrated Preventive Medicine Education Program for Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Groups

人体的运作是基于心脏、主动脉（从心脏延伸出来的最大血管）和其他主要器官（如大脑）之间血液流动的微妙平衡。了解心脏、主动脉和大脑之间的相互作用是检测和治疗心脏病（如心力衰竭）和脑部疾病（如痴呆）的关键一步。这个CAREER项目的目标是了解心脏和大脑如何相互影响，以便为服务不足的社区开发易于使用和廉价的心脏-大脑监测设备。该职业项目的教育部分基于“看一个、做一个、教一个”的理念，鼓励低收入家庭进行健康监测和预防医学。此外，该奖项还将建立一个数据库，使医学领域的人工智能（AI）等其他领域的研究人员受益。心力衰竭（HF）是一种以心脏无法在血管网络中循环血液为特征的疾病。流行病学研究表明，仅仅是社会经济上处于不利地位的社区成员是心衰事件和心衰再入院率增加的独立危险因素。此外，由于缺乏有效的治疗方法，降低患痴呆症的风险至关重要。与心衰的情况一样，较低的社会经济地位转化为较高的痴呆患病率。了解心脏、主动脉和大脑之间复杂的流体动力学耦合（血流动力学相互作用）不仅是心衰和痴呆的诊断和治疗的关键一步，也是其他相关疾病的诊断和治疗的关键一步。这一提议的一般假设是，主动脉的波动动力学支配着心脏、大脑的脉动血流动力学，以及两者之间的非线性相互作用。研究者的主要目标是阐明主动脉血流动力学对心脑相互作用的系统级影响。为了实现这一目标，研究者将结合最先进的实验、尖端的数值模拟和新颖的混合物理信息机器学习方法。最终，这项研究的结果将有助于提高对高度复杂疾病（如心衰、阿尔茨海默病和痴呆症）的病理生理途径的理解。这个CAREER项目的长期目标是开发心脏病和血管性脑损伤的诊断和监测设备。该项目由工程理事会化学、生物工程、环境和运输系统部门的生物医学系统工程和流体动力学项目以及数学和物理科学理事会数学科学部的数学生物学项目共同资助。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The human body works based on a delicate balance of blood flow dynamic between the heart, the aorta (the largest vessel extending from the heart), and other major organs like the brain. Understanding the interactions between the heart, aorta, and brain is a key step towards detecting and treating both heart disease (i.e., heart failure) and brain diseases (i.e., dementia). The goal of this CAREER project is to understand how the heart and the brain impact each other so that easy-to-use and cheap heart-brain monitoring devices can be developed for underserved communities. The educational part of this CAREER project is based on the “See One, Do One, Teach One” philosophy to encourage health monitoring and preventive medicine in low-income families. In addition, this CAREER award will generate a database that will benefit researchers in other fields such as artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine. Heart failure (HF) is a condition characterized by the inability of the heart to circulate blood in the vascular network. Epidemiological studies have shown that simply being a member of a socioeconomically disadvantaged community is an independent risk factor for both incident HF as well as increased hospital readmission for HF. Additionally, reducing the risk for the development of dementia is of the utmost importance due to the absence of effective treatments. As is the case with HF, lower socioeconomic status translates to higher prevalence of dementia. Understanding the complex fluid dynamic coupling (hemodynamic interactions) between the heart, aorta, and brain is a crucial step towards diagnostics and therapeutics of not only HF and dementia, but also other related diseases. The general hypothesis of this proposal is that wave dynamics in the aorta dominate the pulsatile hemodynamics of the heart, the brain, and the nonlinear interaction between the two. The investigator’s main goal is to elucidate systems-level effects of aortic hemodynamics on heart-brain interactions. In order to achieve this goal, the investigator will combine state-of-the-art experimentation, cutting-edge numerical simulation, and novel hybrid physics-informed machine learning approaches. Ultimately, the outcome of this research will facilitate improved understanding of the pathophysiological pathways in highly complex diseases such as HF, Alzheimer’s, and dementia. The long-term goal of this CAREER project is to develop diagnostic and monitoring devices for heart diseases and vascular brain damage. This project is jointly funded by the Engineering of Biomedical Systems and Fluid Dynamics programs of the Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems in the Engineering Directorate and by the Mathematical Biology program of the Division of Mathematical Sciences in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.