Contribution of the extracellular matrix to the viscoelastic behavior of the urinary bladder wall

Autor: Michael B. Chancellor, Kevin K. Toosi, Jiro Nagatomi, Michael S. Sacks
Rok vydání: 2007
Předmět:
Zdroj: Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology. 7:395-404
ISSN: 1617-7940
1617-7959
DOI: 10.1007/s10237-007-0095-9
Popis: We previously reported that when the stress relaxation response of urinary bladder wall (UBW) tissue was analyzed using a single continuous reduced relaxation func- tion (RRF), we observed non-uniformly distributed, time- dependent residuals (Ann Biomed Eng 32(10):1409-1419, 2004). We concluded that the single relaxation spectrum was inadequate and that a new viscoelastic model for bladder wall was necessary. In the present study, we report a new approach composed of independent RRFs for smooth mus- cle and the extracellular matrix components (ECM), con- nected through a stress-dependent recruitment function. In order to determine the RRF for the ECM component, biax- ial stress relaxation experiments were first performed on decellularized extracellular matrix network of the bladder obtained from normal and spinal cord injured rats. While it was assumed that smooth muscle followed a single spectrum RRF, modeling the UBW ECM required a dual-Gaussian spectrum. Experimental results revealed that the ECM stress relaxation response was insensitive to the initial stress level. Thus, the average ECM RRF parameters were determined by fitting the average stress relaxation data. The resulting stress relaxation behavior of whole bladder tissue was mod- eled by combining the ECM RRF with the RRF for the smooth muscle component using an exponential recruitment function representing the recruitment of collagen fibers at higher stress levels. In summary, the present study demon- strated, for the first time, that stress relaxation response of bladder tissue can be better modeled when divided into the contributions of the extracellular matrix and smooth muscle components. This modeling approach is suitable for predic- tion of mechanical behaviors of the urinary bladder and other organs that exhibit rapid tissue remodeling (i.e., smooth mus- cle hypertrophy and altered ECM synthesis) under various pathological conditions.
Databáze: OpenAIRE