Computer modeling of the cardiovascular system and blood pressure regulation

Abstract

The cardiovascular system consists of the heart and the vessels. The pressure in the arteries is regulated by the baroreflex, which means pressure reflex. The baroreflex is a part of the central nervous system. The main purpose of this thesis is to couple two previously published circulation models. The first is primerily a baroreflex model and the second is a closed loop circulation model with a four-chamber elastic heart and baroreflex, that models pulsatile blood flow. The first model was made with the intension to optimize parameters of a baroreflex model to individuals. We will test it against measurements, for randomized start parameters. Originally it had only been tested against two parameter sets for each subject. We want to find out how stable the results from the optimizing process are. When we connect the first model's baroreflexes to the pulsatile circulation, we need to make some adjustments to the model to retain the original intent. We compare the second model with both original and the other model's baroreflexes, We are interested in whether the first baromodel's parameter values that fit the second circulation are within the values that were optimized when running the first model for the individual measurements.