Micromechanics of Carotid Plaque Rupture

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Graeham Douglas
• Tuesday 28 January 2014, 14:30-15:00
• Cambridge University Engineering Department, Oatley meeting room 1.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Anna Walczyk.

The climatic event in atherosclerotic progression is the rupture of the plaque’s fibrous cap, releasing thrombogenic lipid material into the lumen which may result in an occlusion. This mechanism is responsible for about 60% of heart attacks and strokes. Vulnerability to rupture for a particular fibrous cap is a key clinical question, but relatively little is known about the mechanisms of these events. Presumably, the tissue is overloaded, either by increase of the effective stress or decrease of the effective material strength. Previous work in our group has looked at the role of geometric and material property-mismatch in increasing stresses. One limitation of such an approach is that the failure stresses of the fibrous cap in vitro are several times higher than the maximum in vivo stresses predicted by computational models. This suggests a more complicated failure mechanism of the material. The focus for the present work is in understanding the micromechanics basis for the strength of the fibrous cap. It is hypothesised that the strength of the fibrous cap comes from the nature of the fibrous collagen network making up the tissue. Therefore, parameters of the network can be considered and modelled to predict material properties of the tissue as a whole. Preliminary tensile experiments on carotid tissue have been completed, along with SEM images to analyse the fibrous structure of the tissue. It is hoped that understanding the micromechanics of the failure of atherosclerotic plaques will lead to better prediction of plaque vulnerability to rupture and suggest avenues for novel treatments.

This talk is part of the Bioengineering Seminar Series series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• Biology
• Biology
• CamBridgeSens
• Cambridge Infectious Diseases
• Cambridge Neuroscience Seminars
• Cambridge University Engineering Department, Oatley meeting room 1
• Cambridge talks
• Chris Davis' list
• Engineering - Mechanics, Materials and Design (Div C) - talks and events
• Engineering for the Life Sciences Seminars
• Featured lists
• Life Science
• Life Science Interface Seminars
• Life Sciences
• Life Sciences
• ME Seminar
• Neuroscience
• Neuroscience Seminars
• Neuroscience Seminars
• Stem Cells & Regenerative Medicine
• Trust & Technology Initiative - interesting events
• dh539
• my_list
• other talks

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.