Inclusion of a Collagen-GAG Sponge Core Improves Tangent Modulus of Multi-Phase PEGDM Hydrogel Constructs

Nearly 27 million people in the United States suffer from osteoarthritis (OA).[1] While surgical options are available for patients suffering from OA, focal treatments, such as resection and mosaicplasty, rarely succeed in regenerating fully functional cartilage. Tissue engineering holds potential for developing more effective repair strategies.

Adapting the Cassini Curve to Approximate In Vivo Irreversible Electroporation Ablations in Porcine Liver

Irreversible electroporation (IRE) is a new minimally invasive non-thermal focal ablation technique that has been used for the treatment of spontaneous tumors in canine and human patients [1, 2]. The procedure typically involves placing two electrodes into or around a tumor and delivering a series of low energy electric pulses to kill tumor tissue with sub-millimeter resolution. The pulses generate an electric field that alters the resting transmembrane potential (TMP) of the cells. Depending on the magnitude of the induced TMP, the electric pulses can have no effect, reversibly increase membrane permeability, or cause cell death in the case of IRE.

Anti-Adhesions Properties of Polyelectrolyte Complex Based Films

Adhesions are abnormal fibrous connections between tissues and can occur following virtually any type of surgery (1). They are often painful and can severely disrupt normal organ function. The incidence of adhesions following surgery is very high; some estimate an incidence as high as 80%. Thus, the prevention of adhesions has the potential to save the healthcare market billions of dollars and improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of patients.

Method for Incorporating Three-Dimensional Residual Stresses Into Patient-Specific Simulations of Arteries

Through progress in medical imaging, image analysis and finite element (FE) meshing tools it is now possible to extract patient-specific geometries from medical images of, e.g., abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs), and thus to study clinically relevant problems via FE simulations. Medical imaging is most often performed in vivo, and hence the reconstructed model geometry in the problem of interest will represent the in vivo state, e.g., the AAA at physiological blood pressure. However, classical continuum mechanics and FE methods assume that constitutive models and the corresponding simulations start from an unloaded, stress-free reference condition.

Dynamic Splints, Functionally-Customized With Nitinol, Can Reduce Joint Rigidity in Pediatric Subjects With Spasticity

Neuromuscular diseases as a consequence of brain damage are complex phenomena involving disuse, immobility, brain tissue remodeling and cortical function remapping. They may have various causes and strike any part of the population. The vicious circle leading to a worsening of the patients’ conditions proceeds through muscle shortening by contractures, disruption of the normal reflex behavior and sensory problems, development of spasticity [1]. Physical rehabilitation alone or in association with surgery or pharmacological treatments can be useful in limiting those degenerations. Besides manual rehabilitation, splints and braces are prescribed to control the limb posture and obtain stretching of the muscles. The role of those orthoses is to maintain the paretic limb in a set ‘physiological’ position and let it relax into that posture, in an attempt to reduce muscle rigidity and contractures. However applying a fixed constraint to the limb and waiting for relaxation to take place, may cause discomfort, pain, skin rash, and sundry different complications [2]. Also, any residual voluntary movement is prevented by a fixed-angle splinting. In addition, all these negative characteristics limit tolerability and daily application times. This work presents a different way to promote limb repositioning, based on the application of NiTi-alloy-based dynamic splints, which favor mobility and any residual use of the affected limb. Furthermore it suggests that application of mild contact forces prolonged in time has the advantage of feeling less painful and uncomfortable for the patients, improving overall treatment tolerability.

Continuum Description of the Time- and Strain-Dependent Poisson’s Ratio of Ligament Under Finite Deformation

Ligament volumetric behavior controls fluid and thus nutrient movement as well as the mechanical response of the tissue to applied loads. The reported Poisson’s ratios for tendon and ligament subjected to tensile deformation loading along the fiber direction are large, ranging from 0.8 ± 0.3 in rat tail tendon fascicles [1] to 2.98 ± 2.59 in bovine flexor tendon [2]. These Poisson’s ratios are indicative of volume loss and thus fluid exudation [3,4]. We have developed micromechanical finite element models that can reproduce both the characteristic nonlinear stress-strain behavior and large, strain-dependent Poisson’s ratios seen in tendons and ligaments [5], but these models are computationally expensive and unfeasible for large scale, whole joint models. The objectives of this research were to develop an anisotropic, continuum based constitutive model for ligaments and tendons that can describe strain-dependent Poisson’s ratios much larger than the isotropic limit of 0.5. Further, we sought to demonstrate the ability of the model to describe experimental data, and to show that the model can be combined with biphasic theory to describe the rate- and time-dependent behavior of ligament and tendon.

A Multiscale Approach to Modeling the Passive Mechanical Contribution of Cells in Tissues

In addition to their obvious biological roles in tissue function, cells often play a significant mechanical role through a combination of passive and active behaviors. Phenomenological and continuum modeling approaches to understand tissue biomechanics have included improved constitutive laws that incorporate anisotropy in the extracellular matrix (ECM) and/or cellular phenomenon, e.g, [1]. The lack of microstructural detail in these models, however, limits their ability to explore the respective contributions and interactions between different components within a tissue. In contrast, structural approaches attempt to understand tissue biomechanics by incorporating microstructural details directly into the model, e.g., the tensegrity model [2], cellular solids models [3], or biopolymer models [4]. Research in our group focuses on developing a comprehensive model to predict the mechanical behavior of soft tissues via a multiscale approach, a technique that allows integration of the microstructural details of different components into the modeling framework. A significant gap in our previous models, however, is the absence of cells. The current work represents an improvement of the multiscale model via the addition of cells, and investigates the passive mechanical contribution of cells to overall tissue mechanics.

Energy Storing and Positional Tendon Fascicles Exhibit Different Fatigue Behaviour

Overuse tendinopathies are often considered to be the result of repeated microstrain below the failure threshold, analogous to the fatigue failure of materials under repeated loading [1, 2]. Investigation of tendon overuse in vitro is thus of potential benefit towards characterizing the progression of damage.

Prediction of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms Using Sparse Gaussian Process Regression

Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms (AAA) is a form of vascular disease causing focal enlargement of abdominal aorta. It affects a large part of population and has up to 90% mortality rate. Since risks from open surgery or endovascular repair outweighs the risk of AAA rupture, surgical treatments are not recommended with AAA less than 5.5cm in diameter. Recent clinical recommendations suggest that people with small aneurysms should be examined 3∼36 months depending on size to get information about morphological changes. While advances in biomechanics provide state-of-the-art spatial estimates of stress distributions of AAA, there are still limitations in modeling its time evolution. Thus, there is no biomechanical framework to utilize such information from a series of medical images that would aid physicians in detecting small aneurysms with high risk of rupture. For the present study, we use series of CT images of small AAAs taken at different times to model and predict the spatio-temporal evolution of AAA. This is achieved using sparse local Gaussian process regression.

Relationship Between Meniscal Sample Swelling and the Compressive Properties of Bovine Menisci

The menisci are anisotropic hydrated connective tissues, situated in the tibiofemoral joint. The menisci transmit approximately 50% of the load across this joint [1, 2]. In this tissue, compression would only be experienced in the axial (vertical) direction, and as such, many studies have tested samples in the axial direction to determine the compressive properties [3–5]. The material behaviour of the menisci has been described as biphasic, meaning the response of the tissue to applied load is time dependent and determined by both the solid constituents and their interaction with the fluid component [3]. Due to the low permeability of the tissue, deformation results in relative movement of the solid matrix and the fluid it contains, resulting in the creation of drag forces between the two phases. Fluid exudation from the matrix governs the viscoelastic behaviour of the tissue, including stress relaxation and creep [6]. The swelling behaviour of meniscal samples in varying osmotic environments was evaluated in our lab (unpublished data), where they swelled significantly, approximately 30% volumetrically in iso-osmotic phosphate buffered saline (PBS). It was hypothesized that the material properties of the tissue would be affected by this significant swelling. To date, no study has evaluated the effect of sample swelling, due to sample preparation and storage, on the behaviour of the menisci in compression. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate this relationship. We hypothesized that meniscal samples would be less stiff and more permeable in a swollen state than when they are compressed to the ‘fresh’, non-swollen, thickness prior to initiation of the protocol.