A. Vrettos (USA)
Arterial Compliance, Heart Rate, Frequency Analysis of the Oscillatory Part of Flow, Transfer Function
The Aortic Flow waveform has very strong oscillatory components. This is due to the intermittent function of the heart. Typically the power of these oscillations constitute 80 percent of the power in the Aortic Flow signal. In healthy animals by the time the blood flow reaches the high-resistance sites of the circulation its oscillations have virtually disappeared. If the oscillations were not to disappear, an excessive amount of power (and energy) would be wasted on these high-resistance sites and this would overload the left ventricle itself. We use the 3-element Windkessel Model to demonstrate the following: A) the Arterial Compliance is very important in reducing the oscillatory components of Aortic Flow before they reach the high -resistive sites of the circulation B) the Heart Rate is equally important in reducing the oscillatory components of Aortic Flow before they reach the high-resistive sites of the circulation, and it is thus a compensatory mechanism to loss of compliance due to aging or other disease affecting the Arterial Wall elasticity.
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