Synthetic vascular trees
Perfusion is decided in vessels an order of magnitude smaller than any clinical scan resolves. Those vessels have to be generated rather than measured.
Growing a tree that behaves
Trees are generated by a tissue-growth criterion: each new branch is placed to supply tissue that is currently underserved, subject to constraints on flow, pressure drop and branching angle. The result is a network whose statistics — branching exponents, calibre distributions, perfusion territories — match measured vasculature rather than merely looking plausible.
The generated tree is then coupled to a three-dimensional tissue domain so that perfusion can be computed. Applied to stroke patients, this makes it possible to estimate perfusion deficits in territories no image resolves.
Selected work
Tissue-growth based synthetic tree generation and perfusion simulation
Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology 22:1095–1112
Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 244:107956