Numerical modeling of cardiomyocytes using Finite Element Method

Abstract

In recent years, the use of mathematical and geometrical models has been enabling the simulation of biological complex systems. Models of cardiac cells provide the possibility to understand the biochemistry and biomechanics of cardiac cells and cardiovascular diseases. The main objective of this work is to simulate the calcium flux and contractile activity of the cardiomyocyte, resorting on the Finite Element Method, and to develop a modelling tool with which we can simulate the key physiological aspects of the cardiac myocytes: Calcium concentration and contraction potential (% of shortening). To test our model's performance several tests were applied varying the local active cellular tension driven by the intracellular calcium concentration (Tu), and the position of T-tubules in the cell, from left to right and up to bottom. Our results show that the behaviour of our model is faithful to what is known to be true with the cell's physiology and pathological conditions.