Comparison of approaches to quantify arterial damping capacity from pressurization tests on mouse conduit arteries

Large conduit arteries are not purely elastic, but viscoelastic, which affects not only the mechanical behavior but also the ventricular afterload. Different hysteresis loops such as pressure-diameter, pressure-luminal cross-sectional area (LCSA), and stress–strain have been used to estimate damping capacity, which is associated with the ratio of the dissipated energy to the stored energy. Typically, linearized methods are used to calculate the damping capacity of arteries despite the fact that arteries are nonlinearly viscoelastic. The differences in the calculated damping capacity between these hysteresis loops and the most common linear and correct nonlinear methods have not been fully examined. The purpose of this study was thus to examine these differences and to determine a preferred approach for arterial damping capacity estimation. Pressurization tests were performed on mouse extralobar pulmonary and carotid arteries in their physiological pressure ranges with pressure (P) and outer diameter (OD) measured. The P-inner diameter (ID), P-stretch, P-Almansi strain, P-Green strain, P-LCSA, and stress–strain loops (including the Cauchy and Piola-Kirchhoff stresses and Almansi and Green strains) were calculated using the P-OD data and arterial geometry. Then, the damping capacity was calculated from these loops with both linear and nonlinear methods. Our results demonstrate that the linear approach provides a reasonable approximation of damping capacity for all of the loops except the Cauchy stress-Almansi strain, for which the estimate of damping capacity was significantly smaller (22 ± 8% with the nonlinear method and 31 ± 10% with the linear method). Between healthy and diseased extralobar pulmonary arteries, both methods detected significant differences. However, the estimate of damping capacity provided by the linear method was significantly smaller (27 ± 11%) than that of the nonlinear method. We conclude that all loops except the Cauchy stress-Almansi strain loop can be used to estimate artery wall damping capacity in the physiological pressure range and the nonlinear method is recommended over the linear method.