A simple cycle-averaged model for cardiovascular dynamics.

Lumped-parameter time-varying electrical circuit analogs for cardiovascular systems are frequently used in computational models for simulating and analyzing hemodynamics. These pulsatile models provide details of the beat-by-beat or intracycle dynamics. In other settings, however, such as when tracking a hospital patient's hemodynamic state over time, it is more useful to track trends in the intercycle dynamics. In this paper, we apply a cycle-averaging method to a simple pulsatile cardiovascular model to derive a cycle-averaged model for cardiovascular dynamics. The resulting cycle-averaged model captures the intercycle dynamics with relatively small approximation errors for a large range of perturbations in parameters such as systemic vascular resistance.