Blood pressure distribution in microvascular networks

Abstract

Blood rheology is complex and nonlinear. The effective viscosity variations are important due to red blood cells packing inside capillaries, the socalled FåhræusLindquist effect, whilst concomitantly phase segregation appears in bifurcations. We have performed direct numerical simulations of different nonlinear rheological models of the blood on realistic threedimensional microvascular networks. These simulations point out two significant results. First, various rheological models lead to very similar pressure distributions over the whole range of physiologically relevant hematocrits. Secondly, different models for phase segregation lead to very distinct hematocrit distributions in the microvascular network. Moreover, for all the investigated rheological models, the hematocrit distribution very weakly affects the pressure distribution, when prescribing uniform pressure boundary conditions.