Abstract:

Microcirculation is composed of arterioles, capillaries, and venules, where the diameter of blood vessels varies approximately from 5 to 100 μm. The behavior of blood cells, including red blood cells (erythrocytes), white blood cells (leukocytes), and platelets (thrombocytes), is of great interest in physiology and biomedical engineering. Recent advances in numerical methods and computer hardware have allowed us to simulate the behavior of blood cells in microcirculation. In this chapter, we will provide an overview of recent numerical studies on the microcirculation. We first show “2.1 Behavior of capsules in flow” for a fundamental understanding of the modeling of the cell dynamics and then “2.2 Behavior of red blood cells” for a more specific case of red blood cells. We also present numerical analyses of cell adhesion in microcirculation: “2.3 Cell adhesion in microvessels” for the margination and adhesion of leukocytes, tumor cells, and malaria-infected red blood cells and “2.4 Formation and destruction of the primary thrombus” for platelet adhesion and aggregation.

S. Nix, H. Kamada (2018). Biomechanics of Microcirculation. Integrated Nano-Biomechanics Micro and Nano Technologies. 2018, Pages 9-69. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-38944-0.00002-4