Modeling the dispersion in electromechanically coupled myocardium.

We present an approach to model the dispersion of fiber and sheet orientations in the myocardium. By utilizing structure parameters, an existing orthotropic and invariant-based constitutive model developed to describe the passive behavior of the myocardium is augmented. Two dispersion parameters are fitted to experimentally observed angular dispersion data of the myocardial tissue. Computations are performed on a unit myocardium tissue cube and on a slice of the left ventricle indicating that the dispersion parameter has an effect on the myocardial deformation and stress development. The use of fiber dispersions relating to a pathological myocardium had a rather big effect. The final example represents an ellipsoidal model of the left ventricle indicating the influence of fiber and sheet dispersions upon contraction over a cardiac cycle. Although only a minor shift in the pressure-volume (PV) loops between the cases with no dispersions and with fiber and sheet dispersions for a healthy myocardium was observed, a remarkably different behavior is obtained with a fiber dispersion relating to a diseased myocardium. In future simulations, this dispersion model for myocardial tissue may advantageously be used together with models of, for example, growth and remodeling of various cardiac diseases.