The Impact of Increased Collateral Flow on Transverse Arteriolar Microvascular Tree Morphology

<p>The goal of this study was to understand how arteriogenesis impacts transverse arteriolar tree structure. The previous process involved a vascular casting technique that utilized black India ink as the casting agent and manual measurement of vessel morphology with ImageJ. This study decreased the complexity of the casted samples by using a casting compound called Microfil. Microfil’s viscosity can be adjusted and through experimentation, a viscosity was found that stopped at the capillary level, allowing only the arterial side of the circulation to be casted. A macro in ImageJ was written to help with morphological measurement by bundling vessel length and diameter into one measurement instead of two. These two adjustments were then used in a ligated mouse model to compare healthy and remodeled vascular networks. The analysis revealed that the only significant difference for length and diameter measurements was in the diameters of the collateral. This indicates that it’s possible that stimulating arteriogenesis in a clinical environment should not cause any negative effects in the collateral-containing muscle. However, this observation is potentially limited by the differences between the model and patient.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

MS in Biomedical Engineering

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Biomedical and General Engineering

Year dc:date.available

2012

Author dc:creator

• Danzeiser, David

Contributors dc:contributor

• Trevor R. Cardinal

• Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering

Identifier

10.15368/theses.2012.34

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.calpoly.edu:theses-1759