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Statistical physics of cerebral embolization leading to stroke

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posted on 2016-01-21, 10:02 authored by J. P. Hague, Emma Ming Lin Chung
We discuss the physics of embolic stroke using a minimal model of emboli moving through the cerebral arteries. Our model of the blood flow network consists of a bifurcating tree into which we introduce particles (emboli) that halt flow on reaching a node of similar size. Flow is weighted away from blocked arteries inducing an effective interaction between emboli. We justify the form of the flow weighting using a steady flow (Poiseuille) analysis and a more complicated nonlinear analysis. We discuss free flowing and heavily congested limits and examine the transition from free flow to congestion using numerics. The correlation time is found to increase significantly at a critical value and a finite-size scaling is carried out. An order parameter for nonequilibrium critical behavior is identified as the overlap of blockages’ flow shadows. Our work shows embolic stroke to be a feature of the cerebral blood flow network on the verge of a phase transition.

History

Citation

Physical Review E, 2009, 80 (5), pp. 051912-1-051912-9

Author affiliation

/Organisation/COLLEGE OF MEDICINE, BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND PSYCHOLOGY/School of Medicine/Department of Cardiovascular Sciences

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Published in

Physical Review E

Publisher

American Physical Society

issn

1539-3755

eissn

1550-2376

Copyright date

2009

Available date

2016-01-21

Publisher version

http://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.80.051912

Language

en

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