Effects of atrial contraction, atrioventricular interaction and heart valve dynamics on human cardiovascular system response

Various simulation models of different complexity have been proposed to model the dynamic response of the human cardiovascular system. In a related paper we proposed an improved numerical model to study the dynamic response of the cardiovascular system, and the pressures, volumes and flow-rates in the four chambers of the heart, which included the effects of atrial contraction, atrioventricular interaction, and heart valve dynamics. This paper investigates the effects of each one of these aspects of the model on the overall dynamic system response. The dynamic response is studied under different situations, with and without including the effect of various features of the model, and these situations are studied and compared among themselves and to detailed aspects of expected healthy-system response. As an important contribution with potential clinical applications, this paper examines the corresponding effects of atrioventricular interaction, and heart valve opening and closing dynamics to the general system dynamic response. This isolation of physical cause–effect relationships is difficult to study with purely experimental methods. The simulation results agree well with results in the open literature. Comparison shows that introduction of these new features greatly improves the simulation accuracy of the effects of a, v and c waves, and in predicting regurgitant valve flow, the dichrotic notch, and E/A velocity ratio.