Doman Eleanor A, Ovenden Nicholas C, Phillips James B, Shipley Rebecca J
Department of Mathematics, University College London, Gower St, London, WC1E 6BT, UK.
Department of Mathematics, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK.
Biomech Model Mechanobiol. 2025 Feb;24(1):297-309. doi: 10.1007/s10237-024-01911-w. Epub 2024 Nov 25.
The mechanical behaviour of peripheral nerves is known to vary between different nerves and nerve regions. As the field of nerve tissue engineering advances, it is vital that we understand the range of mechanical regimes future nerve implants must match to prevent failure. Data on the mechanical behaviour of human peripheral nerves are difficult to obtain due to the need to conduct mechanical testing shortly after removal from the body. In this work, we adapt a 3D multiscale biomechanical model, developed using asymptotic homogenisation, to mimic the micro- and macroscale structure of a peripheral nerve. This model is then parameterised using experimental data from rat peripheral nerves and used to investigate the effect of varying the collagen content, the fibril radius and number density, and the macroscale cross-sectional geometry of the peripheral nerve on the effective axial Young's moduli of the whole nerve. Our results indicate that the total amount of collagen within a cross section has a greater effect on the axial Young's moduli compared to other measures of structure. This suggests that the amount of collagen in a cross section of a peripheral nerve, which can be measured through histological and imaging techniques, is one of the key metrics that should be recorded in the future experimental studies on the biomechanical properties of peripheral nerves.
已知不同神经和神经区域的周围神经力学行为存在差异。随着神经组织工程领域的发展，了解未来神经植入物必须匹配的力学范围以防止失败至关重要。由于需要在从人体取出后不久进行力学测试，因此很难获得人类周围神经力学行为的数据。在这项工作中，我们采用一种使用渐近均匀化方法开发的三维多尺度生物力学模型，来模拟周围神经的微观和宏观结构。然后，该模型使用来自大鼠周围神经的实验数据进行参数化，并用于研究改变胶原含量、纤维半径和数量密度以及周围神经的宏观横截面几何形状对整个神经有效轴向杨氏模量的影响。我们的结果表明，与其他结构指标相比，横截面内胶原的总量对轴向杨氏模量的影响更大。这表明，可以通过组织学和成像技术测量的周围神经横截面中的胶原量，是未来关于周围神经生物力学特性的实验研究中应记录的关键指标之一。
