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Parallel generation of extensive vascular networks with application to an archetypal human kidney model

Cury, Luis Fernando Mendes1; Younes-Ibrahim, Maurício2; Blanco, Pablo Javier1; Maso Talou, Gonzalo Daniel3

Published May 17, 2022 on Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.t4b8gtj25

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May 17, 2022 version files 1.06 GB

Abstract

Given the relevance of the inextricable coupling between microcirculation and physiology, and the relation to organ function and disease progression, the construction of synthetic vascular networks for mathematical modelling and computer simulation is becoming an increasingly broad field of research. Building vascular networks that mimic in-vivo morphometry is feasible through algorithms such as constrained constructive optimisation (CCO) and variations. Nevertheless, these methods are limited by the maximum number of vessels to be generated due to the whole network update required at each vessel addition. In this work, we propose a CCO-based approach endowed with a domain decomposition strategy to concurrently create vascular networks. The performance of this approach is evaluated by analysing the agreement with the sequentially generated networks and studying the scalability when building vascular networks up to 200,000 vascular segments. Finally, we apply our method to vascularise a highly complex geometry corresponding to the cortex of a prototypical human kidney. The technique presented in this work enables the automatic generation of extensive vascular networks, removing the limitation from previous works. Thus, we can extent vascular networks (e.g., obtained from medical images) to pre-arteriolar level, yielding patient-specific whole-organ vascular models with an unprecedented level of detail.