Modeling pressure-flow relations in cardiac muscle in diastole and systole. Vis, Martijn A., P. Sipkema, and Nico Westerhof. Laboratory for Physiology, Institute for Cardiovascular Research (ICaR-VU), Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
APStracts 3:0422H, 1996.
Pressure-flow relations were calculated for a symmetrical, maximally dilated, crystalloid-perfused coronary vascular network embedded in cardiac muscle in (static) diastole and (static) systole, at two muscle lengths: slack length and 90% of maximal muscle length (Lmax). The calculations are based on the "time-varying elastance concept". That is, the calculations include both the mechanical properties of the vascular wall and the (varying) mechanical properties of the myocardial tissue (in cross-fiber direction). We found that, at any given perfusion pressure, coronary flow is smaller in systole than in diastole. Relative reduction in vascular cross -sectional area, which forms the basis of flow impediment, was found to be largest for the smallest arterioles. At a constant perfusion pressure of 62.5 mmHg, the transition from (static) diastole to (static) systole at constant muscle length ("isometric contraction") was calculated to reduce flow by 74% (from 18.9 to 5.0 ml/min/g) and by 64% (from 12.6 to 4.6 ml/min/g), for the muscle fixed at slack length and 90% of Lmax, respectively. At this perfusion pressure, contraction with 14% shortening (from 90% of Lmax in diastole to slack length in systole) was calculated to reduce flow by 61% (from 12.6 to 5.0 ml/min/g). Increasing muscle length from slack length to 90% of Lmax decreases coronary flow by 34% in diastole and by 8% in systole. We conclude that modeling cardiac contraction on basis of the time-varying elastic properties of the myocardial tissue can explain coronary flow impediment and that contractions, with or without shortening, have a larger effect on coronary flow than changes in muscle length. 

Received 13 May 1996; accepted in final form 19 September 1996.
APS Manuscript Number H434-6.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Heart Circ. Physiology).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1996 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 5 November 1996