Progression of Diabetic Capillary Occlusion: A Model
Fig 6
Simulation is initialized with input of the original capillary network topology and structure as well as the component cells. Computation of flow velocities and simulation of oxygen and VEGF fluxes occurs next. Each model week the model addresses capillary leakiness and each model month capillary occlusion is evaluated. (1) If no new occlusion occurs, the model simply repeats checking for edema formation and capillary occlusion until occlusion occurs or until a pre-assigned simulated time (3 years at our temporal conversion rate) is arrived at. (2) Once a new occlusion occurs, the network topology is changed and its structure is adapted to eliminate flow in the irreversibly occluded capillary, followed by a new iteration of previous steps. The process stops if either no more effective flow paths exist, invalidating flow velocity calculations, or the pre-assigned simulated time is arrived at.