Abstract #1926

Feintuch A, Zhou Y, Bishop J, Henkelman R, Davidson L, Ethier C

Atherosclerosis, like many other diseases, has been a target for mouse modeling. Although there exist physiological differences between mice and humans the atherosclerotic patterns observed in the mouse closely resemble those in humans. Due to the well known relation between atherosclerotic patterns and local hemodynamics, it is of interest to compare mouse and human aortic hemodynamics. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations which can predict distribution and magnitudes of wall shear stress along the aorta require knowledge of boundary conditions in terms of input velocities and flow splits from the aorta to the carotid arteries. In this study both phase contrast MRI and Doppler ultrasound (US) are used to measure the velocity and flow in the aorta and carotids of anesthetized mice during the cardiac cycle. Data from both modalities was used for input and validation of numerical simulations