Abstract
The assessment of flow-mediated dilation (FMD) has been widely used as a non-invasive evaluation method of the endothelial function. The vascular smooth muscle (VSM) function induces artifacts in the evaluated endothelial function because FMD is determined by the interaction of the endothelial and VSM function. The myogenic response in human radial arteries was recently observed and the relationship between pressure and diameter (PD) was clarified. The PD relationship provides a key information regarding the VSM function, which is almost independent of the endothelial function. Therefore, the integrated analysis of FMD and PD relationship is thought to be an ideal method for evaluating the endothelial function. In this study, we performed computer simulations with the muliscale model of the vascular wall. The model well described the PD relationship and reproduced the similar time course of pressure-induced vasomotion observed experimentally. The estimated physical properties of the vascular system show the physiological plausibility. The results suggest that the VSM function can be extracted by a model-based analysis of PD relationship.
