Development of a magneto-hydrodynamic solver for anatomical models

The paper aims to develop a method to non-invasively characterize cardiac blood-flow dynamics, including stroke volume and cardiac output along with spatial resolution of flow profiles. The research develops techniques to gather additional information about blood flow that can supplement present non-invasive ultrasound techniques for the evaluation of heart failure. This additional blood flow information is based on a new physiological marker. This marker is the magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) signal recorded on the ECG (Electrocardiogram) while the subject is exposed to a strong static magnetic field. Such a strong field can be found in a magnetic resonance (MR) scanner. The MHD signal is caused by induced electrical currents in the blood due to the blood flow in the magnetic field and is detected as voltage changes in the electrocardiogram (ECG). Therefore, it is hypothesized that the MHD signal is capable of the rapid and non-invasive measurement of blood flow characteristics that are necessary for evaluating heart failure, particularly diastolic heart failure.The main focus of this abstract lies on the mathematical implementation of the MHD equations as a finite element code, preliminary simulations results, and the comparison of the MDH solver results to literature data.