As is well known, the zero stress state of an artery is brought by cutting a ring of the artery radically and then the ring segment springs open into a sector. The zero stress state is a foundation of strain analysis of an artery. There are two methods to measure the dimensions of a blood vessel in the zero stress state. First, it is a way to measure immediately an opening angle. Second, it is a method of assuming that a cut-open, stress-free specimen forms a circular sector and there are two edge angles. In this paper, we proposed a new method to measure the dimensions of an arterial wall in the zero stress state. The new method is to measure immediately the curve length of an arterial wall in zero stress state by computer image process (CIP). We used the curve lengths to define a standard circle for the strain analysis. We compared these three methods on descending thoracic aortas, common carotid arteries, and femoral arteries of white rabbits. Conclusions are: (1) the new method, that is the strain analysis method from the curve length, is the best method among the three methods of strain analysis; (2) the lengths of a ring segment (the length between D/2 and 2D) do not affect the dimensions of the zero stress state.
Animals ; Aorta, Thoracic ; physiology ; Arteries ; physiology ; Carotid Artery, Common ; physiology ; Elasticity ; Femoral Artery ; physiology ; Rabbits ; Stress, Mechanical ; Tensile Strength

The aim of the present study was to observe the effects of hypoxia on tensions of aortic rings of pika (Ochotona curzoniae) and Sprague-Dawley (SD) rat. The aortic rings were prepared, and in vitro vascular ring perfusion was used to assay the effects of hypoxia or different drugs on contraction responses of the rings with or without endothelium. The results showed that, there was no difference of the contractions to KCl (80 mmol/L) between the aortic rings of the pikas and SD rats. After pre-contraction with NE (1 μmol/L), the aortic rings with endothelium of the SD rats showed obvious relaxation to ACh (1 μmol/L), whereas the aortic rings of the pikas, no matter with or without endothelium, showed significant and unusual contraction to ACh. The aortic rings of pikas, no matter with or without endothelium, exhibited greater contraction when treated by 1 h of hypoxia, compared with those in SD rats; The similar result was showed under hypoxia in combination with Ca(2+) removal. These results suggest that the contraction response to hypoxia in pika is more sensitive compared to that in SD rat, which is dependent on the release of calcium from intracellular calcium store.
Animals ; Aorta, Thoracic ; physiology ; Arterial Pressure ; Calcium ; physiology ; Hypoxia ; In Vitro Techniques ; Lagomorpha ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley

To investigate the effect of ethanol on the zero-stress state of rabbit artery, a rabbit animal model of blood ethanol concentration gradient was established by intragastric administration of ethanol (IGAE). The blood ethanol concentration of each group was measured. The zero-stress state characterized by opening angle was observed by an image processing system. The results revealed that the blood ethanol concentration of each group increased after IGAE. The magnitude of the blood ethanol concentration came to the peak at 1.5-2 h after IGAE. The opening angle decreased with the increase of the magnitude of blood ethanol concentration and the opening angle in each group. These findings suggest that the zero-stress state of the rabbit artery has close relationship with ethanol concentration.
Animals ; Aorta ; physiology ; Arteries ; physiology ; Dose-Response Relationship, Drug ; Ethanol ; blood ; pharmacology ; Female ; Male ; Rabbits ; Random Allocation ; Stress, Mechanical ; Vasoconstriction ; physiology ; Vasodilation ; physiology

Animals ; Aorta, Thoracic ; physiology ; Endothelium ; blood supply ; Male ; Physical Conditioning, Animal ; physiology ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Vasodilation

AIMThrough studying local regulatory mechanisms in pulmonary arteries (PA) and thoracic aortae (TA) under simulated microgravity (SM), to collect some data for the researches of adaptive mechanisms in pulmonary and systemic arteries and for the mechanisms accounting for orthostatic intolerance after SM.

METHODSCardiopulmonary circulatory function during 7-day 6 degrees head down bed rest (HDT) in male young volunteers was measured with a XXH-2000 pulmonary circulation and cardiac function instrument. - 30 degrees C tail suspended (TS) rats were used as the model to simulate the physiological effects of M. The PA and TA changes of vasoreactivity were respectively observed by vitro vessel rings perfusion.

RESULTSThe changes in volume of PA and pulmonary vein during a cardiac cycle and the preload in left cardiac ventricle in men increased significantly in the initial HDT. The super-regulatory phenomena appeared in both pulmonary and systemic circulation, but earlier and more obviously in pulmonary circulation than systemic circulation during 96-144 h. The dilatory reactivity in TS7 PA increased significantly, tended to decrease in TS14. The dilatory reactivity of TA in TS7 had a significant increase, had a slight increase in TS14. The contractile reactivity of PA decreased slightly in TS7 from CON, and were attenuated significantly in TS14. The contractile reactivity of TA in TS14 decreased significantly. The responsiveness to KCl, phenylephrine and sodium nitroprusside in VEC- removed PA had no differences among all groups.

CONCLUSIONThe differences in changes between pulmonary and systemic arteries under SM could be an important sign of depressed local regulatory function, which might be mainly due to dilatory function in VEC and contribute to the occurrence of orthostatic intolerance after SM.

Animals ; Aorta, Thoracic ; physiology ; Humans ; Male ; Pulmonary Artery ; physiology ; Rats ; Rats, Wistar ; Vascular Resistance ; Weightlessness ; Weightlessness Simulation ; Young Adult

Pulse waves contain abundant physiological and pathological information of human body. Research of the relationship between pulse wave and human cardiovascular physiological parameters can not only help clinical diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, but also contribute to develop many new medical instruments. Based on the traditional double elastic cavity model, the human cardiovascular system was established by using the electric network model in this paper. The change of wall pressure and blood flow in artery was simulated. And the influence of the peripheral resistance and vessel compliance to the distribution of blood flow in artery was analyzed. The simulation results were compared with the clinical monitoring results to predict the physiological and pathological state of human body. The result showed that the simulation waveform of arterial wall pressure and blood flow was stabile after the second cardiac cycle. With the increasing of peripheral resistance, the systolic blood pressure of artery increased, the diastolic blood pressure had no significant change, and the pulse pressure of artery increased gradually. With the decreasing of vessel compliance, the vasoactivity became worse and the pulse pressure increased correspondingly. The simulation results were consistent with the clinical monitoring results. The increasing of peripheral resistance and decreasing of vascular compliance indicated that the incidence of hypertension and atherosclerosis was increased.
Aorta ; Arteries ; physiology ; Atherosclerosis ; Blood Pressure ; Cardiovascular Diseases ; Electricity ; Heart ; physiology ; Hemodynamics ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Models, Cardiovascular ; Vascular Resistance

The non-random distribution of atherosclerosis was related to local hemodynamic environment. The stabilization of endothelium was important in this process. We studied the effect of magnitude of shear stress on proliferation of endothelial cells. It was shown the proliferation of endothelial cells was inhibited by shear stress, and was related to the magnitude of shear stress. A parallel plate sudden-expansion flow chamber was constructed, and the effect of flow pattern was also studied. It was shown the inhibition effect produced by shear stress was decreased in this chamber.
Animals ; Aorta ; cytology ; Cattle ; Cell Division ; physiology ; Cells, Cultured ; Endothelium, Vascular ; cytology ; physiology ; Models, Cardiovascular ; Stress, Mechanical

The presence of elastin layers in the aortic walls of twelve human fetuses was confirmed with scanning electron microscope pictures after hot alkali treatment and histochemical examination. In addition, the number of elastin layers in aortic walls of 5 different segments were compared in fetuses of varying ages. Aldehyde fuchsin stained slides of elastin ascending aortas showed a range between 27 and 55 layers of elastin in fetuses of 8 weeks to 32 weeks. However, in the lower abdominal aortas, elastin layers decreased from 28 to only 3 layers for fetuses of the same age. Furthermore, as elastin layers decreased from ascending aorta to abdominal aorta with the progression of fetal life, similar changes in the elastin lamellae were observed. These results suggest that while aortas grow rapidly in length, the medial elastin thickens slowly, perhaps due to slow development of hydrodynamic forces and pressures. Also the adventitial elastin appears to lose out gradually along the length from ascending aorta to abdominal aorta.
Aorta/*embryology/metabolism/ultrastructure ; Elastin/*metabolism ; Fetus/anatomy & histology/*metabolism/physiology ; Human

Animals ; Aorta, Thoracic ; physiology ; Dopamine ; pharmacology ; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration ; In Vitro Techniques ; Rats ; Vasoconstriction ; drug effects

The coupling between the endothelium and blood flow is an important biomedical problem and has drawn extensive research. Endothelial cells are known to adapt their shapes and functions in response to applied shear flow. Shear Stress being regarded as a primary triggering signal for cellular remodeling, it is important to understand the interaction mechanism between applied shear flow and endothelial cells. In present study we have established a theoretical model to simulate the coupling between the deformation of an endothelial cell and applied shear flow. A two dimensional computational fluid dynamic (CFD) is conducted to determine the local distributions of mechanical stress and pressure on cell surface. Our results show that: (1) the deformation of endothelial cell changes with alpha (corresponding to the shear stress imposed on cell surface by flow fluid). When alpha is greater than 0.021, the cell deformability increases greatly; (2) the distributions of stress and pressure on cell surface are not uniform, but the maximal shear stress and displacement are always at the top point of the cell. Meanwhile, we have measured the deformation of cultured human aortic endothelial cells (HAECs) exposed to shear flow by using a flow chamber. We found that the numerical results are well consistent with those of experiment. These results suggest that the non-uniformity distributions of mechanical stress and pressure on cell surface may play a particular role in the mechanism of cell activation and in the regulation of endothelial cells functions (modification of cytoskeleton, distributions of adhesion molecules, etc.). The present study offers a framework to facilitate the development of a comprehensive dynamic model for endothelial cells.
Aorta ; cytology ; Cells, Cultured ; Endothelium, Vascular ; cytology ; physiology ; Humans ; Models, Cardiovascular ; Stress, Mechanical