Universität Stuttgart
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Item Open Access Linking cortex and contraction : integrating models along the corticomuscular pathway(2023) Haggie, Lysea; Schmid, Laura; Röhrle, Oliver; Besier, Thor; McMorland, Angus; Saini, HarnoorComputational models of the neuromusculoskeletal system provide a deterministic approach to investigate input-output relationships in the human motor system. Neuromusculoskeletal models are typically used to estimate muscle activations and forces that are consistent with observed motion under healthy and pathological conditions. However, many movement pathologies originate in the brain, including stroke, cerebral palsy, and Parkinson’s disease, while most neuromusculoskeletal models deal exclusively with the peripheral nervous system and do not incorporate models of the motor cortex, cerebellum, or spinal cord. An integrated understanding of motor control is necessary to reveal underlying neural-input and motor-output relationships. To facilitate the development of integrated corticomuscular motor pathway models, we provide an overview of the neuromusculoskeletal modelling landscape with a focus on integrating computational models of the motor cortex, spinal cord circuitry, α-motoneurons and skeletal muscle in regard to their role in generating voluntary muscle contraction. Further, we highlight the challenges and opportunities associated with an integrated corticomuscular pathway model, such as challenges in defining neuron connectivities, modelling standardisation, and opportunities in applying models to study emergent behaviour. Integrated corticomuscular pathway models have applications in brain-machine-interaction, education, and our understanding of neurological disease.Item Open Access Determination of muscle shape deformations of the tibialis anterior during dynamic contractions using 3D ultrasound(2024) Sahrmann, Annika S.; Vosse, Lukas; Siebert, Tobias; Handsfield, Geoffrey G.; Röhrle, OliverPurpose: In this paper, we introduce a novel method for determining 3D deformations of the human tibialis anterior (TA) muscle during dynamic movements using 3D ultrasound. Materials and Methods: An existing automated 3D ultrasound system is used for data acquisition, which consists of three moveable axes, along which the probe can move. While the subjects perform continuous plantar- and dorsiflexion movements in two different controlled velocities, the ultrasound probe sweeps cyclically from the ankle to the knee along the anterior shin. The ankle joint angle can be determined using reflective motion capture markers. Since we considered the movement direction of the foot, i.e., active or passive TA, four conditions occur: slow active, slow passive, fast active, fast passive. By employing an algorithm which defines ankle joint angle intervals, i.e., intervals of range of motion (ROM), 3D images of the volumes during movement can be reconstructed. Results: We found constant muscle volumes between different muscle lengths, i.e., ROM intervals. The results show an increase in mean cross-sectional area (CSA) for TA muscle shortening. Furthermore, a shift in maximum CSA towards the proximal side of the muscle could be observed for muscle shortening. We found significantly different maximum CSA values between the fast active and all other conditions, which might be caused by higher muscle activation due to the faster velocity. Conclusion: In summary, we present a method for determining muscle volume deformation during dynamic contraction using ultrasound, which will enable future empirical studies and 3D computational models of skeletal muscles.Item Open Access Experiments meet simulations : understanding skeletal muscle mechanics to address clinical problems(2024) Ateş, Filiz; Röhrle, OliverThis article aims to present some novel experimental approaches and computational methods providing detailed insights into the mechanical behavior of skeletal muscles relevant to clinical problems associated with managing and treating musculoskeletal diseases. The mechanical characterization of skeletal muscles in vivo is crucial for better understanding of, prevention of, or intervention in movement alterations due to exercise, aging, or pathologies related to neuromuscular diseases. To achieve this, we suggest an intraoperative experimental method including direct measurements of human muscle forces supported by computational methodologies. A set of intraoperative experiments indicated the major role of extracellular matrix (ECM) in spastic cerebral palsy. The force data linked to joint function are invaluable and irreplaceable for evaluating individual muscles however, they are not feasible in many situations. Three‐dimensional, continuum‐mechanical models provide a way to predict the exerted muscle forces. To obtain, however, realistic predictions, it is important to investigate the muscle not by itself, but embedded within the respective musculoskeletal system, for example, a 6‐muscle upper arm model, and the ability to obtain non‐invasively, or at least, minimally invasively material parameters for continuum‐mechanical skeletal muscle models, for example, by presently proposed homogenization methodologies. Botulinum toxin administration as a treatment option for spasticity is exemplified by combining experiments with modeling to find out the mechanical outcomes of altered ECM and the controversial effects of the toxin. The potentials and limitations of both experimental and modeling approaches and how they need each other are discussed.Item Open Access A microstructurally-based, multi-scale, continuum-mechanical model of skeletal muscle tissue(2019) Bleiler, Christian; Ponte Castañeda, Pedro; Röhrle, OliverItem Open Access Analysing the bone cement flow in the injection apparatus during vertebroplasty(2023) Trivedi, Zubin; Gehweiler, Dominic; Wychowaniec, Jacek K.; Ricken, Tim; Gueorguiev-Rüegg, Boyko; Wagner, Arndt; Röhrle, OliverVertebroplasty, a medical procedure for treating vertebral fractures, requires medical practitioners to inject bone cement inside the vertebra using a cannula attached to a syringe. The required injection force must be small enough for the practitioner to apply it by hand while remaining stable for a controlled injection. Several factors could make the injection force unintuitive for the practitioners, one of them being the non‐Newtonian nature of the bone cement. The viscosity of the bone cement varies as it flows through the different parts of the injection apparatus and the porous cancellous interior of the vertebra. Therefore, it is important to study the flow of bone cement through these parts. This work is a preliminary study on the flow of bone cement through the injection apparatus. Firstly, we obtained the rheological parameters for the power law model of bone cement using experiments using standard clinical equipment. These parameters were then used to obtain the shear rate, viscosity, and velocity profiles of the bone cement flow through the cannula. Lastly, an analysis was carried out to understand the influence of various geometrical parameters of the injection apparatus, in which the radius of the cannula was found to be the most influential parameter.Item Open Access Multi-scale mechanobiological model for skeletal muscle hypertrophy(2022) Villota Narvaez, Yesid Alexis; Garzón-Alvarado, Diego A.; Röhrle, Oliver; Ramírez-Martínez, Angelica M.Skeletal muscle adaptation is correlated to training exercise by triggering different signaling pathways that target many functions; in particular, the IGF1-AKT pathway controls protein synthesis and degradation. These two functions regulate the adaptation in size and strength of muscles. Computational models for muscle adaptation have focused on: the biochemical description of signaling pathways or the mechanical description of muscle function at organ scale; however, an interrelation between these two models should be considered to understand how an adaptation in muscle size affects the protein synthesis rate. In this research, a dynamical model for the IGF1-AKT signaling pathway is linked to a continuum-mechanical model describing the active and passive mechanical response of a muscle; this model is used to study the impact of the adaptive muscle geometry on the protein synthesis at the fiber scale. This new computational model links the signaling pathway to the mechanical response by introducing a growth tensor, and links the mechanical response to the signaling pathway through the evolution of the protein synthesis rate. The predicted increase in cross sectional area (CSA) due to an 8 weeks training protocol excellently agreed with experimental data. Further, our results show that muscle growth rate decreases, if the correlation between protein synthesis and CSA is negative. The outcome of this study suggests that multi-scale models coupling continuum mechanical properties and molecular functions may improve muscular therapies and training protocols.Item Open Access About the applicability of the theory of porous media for the modelling of non‐isothermal material injection into porous structures(2023) Völter, Jan-Sören L.; Ricken, Tim; Röhrle, OliverIn this contribution we investigate the relevance of the theory of porous media for the non-isothermal modelling of material injection into porous structures. In particular, we provide a model describing the injection of cement during percutaneous vertebroplasty, which is derived by consistently following the theory of porous media. We demonstrate numerically that this model elicits unphysical behaviour under local thermal non-equilibrium conditions. No distinct unphysical behaviour is observed under local thermal equilibrium conditions. We conclude that heuristic modifications of the model equations are necessary and suspect the unphysical behaviour to be caused by contradictory modelling assumptions.Item Open Access Strain measures and energies for crimped fibres and novel analytical expressions for fibre populations : ingredients for structural fibre network models(2022) Bleiler, Christian; Röhrle, OliverThis paper deals with the structural modelling of fibre networks with a focus on the description of populations of initially crimped fibres. It presents a systematic approach of introducing appropriate strain measures for single fibres based on a deformation decomposition and by transferring knowledge from the field of elastoplasticity. On this basis, for example, the often used Biot-type fibre strain measures λ-λwand λ/λw-1, with stretch λand waviness λw, are consistently assigned to different classes of material strain (“additive”) or intermediate strain (“multiplicative”) descriptions, respectively. We review in this work different fibre strain energies based on the different stain measures and present extensive comparisons on the physical implications and the results on the fibre population and network scale. These investigations also include formulations with a Hencky-type energy based on a logarithmic strain. Furthermore, we present novel analytical expressions for fibre populations that make the evaluation of integral expression superfluous and thus lead to a significant reduction in computational time.Item Open Access A continuum mechanical porous media model for vertebroplasty : numerical simulations and experimental validation(2023) Trivedi, Zubin; Gehweiler, Dominic; Wychowaniec, Jacek K.; Ricken, Tim; Gueorguiev, Boyko; Wagner, Arndt; Röhrle, OliverThe outcome of vertebroplasty is hard to predict due to its dependence on complex factors like bone cement and marrow rheologies. Cement leakage could occur if the procedure is done incorrectly, potentially causing adverse complications. A reliable simulation could predict the patient-specific outcome preoperatively and avoid the risk of cement leakage. Therefore, the aim of this work was to introduce a computationally feasible and experimentally validated model for simulating vertebroplasty. The developed model is a multiphase continuum-mechanical macro-scale model based on the Theory of Porous Media. The related governing equations were discretized using a combined finite element-finite volume approach by the so-called Box discretization. Three different rheological upscaling methods were used to compare and determine the most suitable approach for this application. For validation, a benchmark experiment was set up and simulated using the model. The influence of bone marrow and parameters like permeability, porosity, etc., was investigated to study the effect of varying conditions on vertebroplasty. The presented model could realistically simulate the injection of bone cement in porous materials when used with the correct rheological upscaling models, of which the semi-analytical averaging of the viscosity gave the best results. The marrow viscosity is identified as the crucial reference to categorize bone cements as ‘high- ’or ‘low-’ viscosity in the context of vertebroplasty. It is confirmed that a cement with higher viscosity than the marrow ensures stable development of the injection and a proper cement interdigitation inside the vertebra.Item Open Access Determining a musculoskeletal system’s pre-stretched state using continuum-mechanical forward modelling and joint range optimization(2024) Avci, Okan; Röhrle, OliverThe subject-specific range of motion (RoM) of a musculoskeletal joint system is balanced by pre-tension levels of individual muscles, which affects their contraction capability. Such an inherent pre-tension or pre-stretch of muscles is not measureable with in vivo experiments. Using a 3D continuum mechanical forward simulation approach for motion analysis of the musculoskeletal system of the forearm with 3 flexor and 2 extensor muscles, we developed an optimization process to determine the muscle fibre pre-stretches for an initial arm position, which is given human dataset. We used RoM values of a healthy person to balance the motion in extension and flexion. The performed sensitivity study shows that the fibre pre-stretches of the m. brachialis , m. biceps brachii and m. triceps brachii with 91% dominate the objective flexion ratio, while m. brachiradialis and m. anconeus amount 7.8% and 1.2%. Within the multi-dimensional space of the surrogate model, 3D sub-spaces of primary variables, namely the dominant muscles and the global objective, flexion ratio, exhibit a path of optimal solutions. Within this optimal path, the muscle fibre pre-stretch of two flexors demonstrate a negative correlation, while, in contrast, the primary extensor, m. triceps brachii correlates positively to each of the flexors. Comparing the global optimum with four other designs along the optimal path, we saw large deviations, e.g., up to 15 ∘in motion and up to 40% in muscle force. This underlines the importance of accurate determination of fibre pre-stretch in muscles, especially, their role in pathological muscular disorders and surgical applications such as free muscle or tendon transfer.