Coronary Smooth Muscle Cell Calcium Dynamics: Effects of Bifurcation Angle on Atheroprone Conditions.

Abstract

This work investigates the effect of arterial bifurcation angulation on atherosclerosis development through in-silico simulations of coupled cell dynamics. The computational model presented here combines cellular pathways, fluid dynamics, and physiologically-realistic vessel geometries as observed in the human vasculature. The coupled cells model includes endothelial cells (ECs) and smooth muscle cells (SMCs) with ion dynamics, hetero and homotypic coupling, as well as electro-diffusive coupling. Three arterial bifurcation surface models were used in the coupled cells simulations. All three simulations showed propagating waves of Ca2+ in both the SMC and EC layers, following the introduction..