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Depth-dependent contributions of various vascular zones to cerebral autoregulation and functional hyperemia: An in-silico analysis

Fig 5

Designing a cerebrovascular model within the autoregulation range.

(a-c) Relative contractility in the in-silico vasculature: (a) superficial sphincters typically experience higher average IP at their entry points () compared to deeper sphincters. This graph highlights the cortical depth-dependency in the contractility of different vascular zones, (b) illustrates the estimated relative contractility of vascular segments across a portion of the in-silico vasculature model. RC indices were estimated by dividing the IP of each segment to the IP of a designated reference segment in the maximally dilated vasculature, (c) statistical analysis of RC in the cerebrovascular model shows that superficial PA segments and sphincters possess larger contractility compared to deeper PA segments. TZ segments also have large contractility in contrast to capillaries which have the least contractility compared to preceding vascular zones. L1-L4 represent the four vascular layers, where each is 210 m thick in the model, (d) the non-linear characteristic of the HRCTF required to maintain constant mean capillary blood flow as a function of ABNP values. This relationship indicates the need for larger initial constriction, which lessens as the ABNP increases, (e) the solid line shows constriction in a PA segment at 100 m cortical depth. The dashed line represents the estimated passive distention of this segment when SMCs are inactive, (f) the solid line shows the MT of this segment based on the curves plotted in panel (e), calculated from . The dashed line illustrates the realistic MT profile for this segment, approximated by averaging the MT profiles of male and female mouse PAs as reported by Jeffrey et al. [86].

doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321053.g005