A Model of the Structural and Functional Development of the Normal Human Fetal Left Ventricle Based on a Global Growth Law

The purpose of this research is to study the growth of the normal human left ventricle (LV) during the fetal period from 14 to 40 weeks of gestation. A new constitutive law for the active myocardium describing the mechanical properties of the active muscle during the whole cardiac cycle has been proposed. The LV model is a thick-walled, incompressible, hyperelastic cylinder, with families of helicoidal fibers running on cylindrical surfaces [1] . Based on the works of Lin and Taber [2] done on the embryonic chick heart, we use for the human fetal heart a growth law in which the growth rate depends on the wall stresses. The parameters of the growth law are adapted to agree with sizes and volumes inferred from two dimensional ultrasound measurements performed on 18 human fetuses. Then calculations are performed to extrapolate the cardiac performance during normal growth of the fetal LV. The results presented support the idea that a growth law in which the growth rate depends linearly on the mean wall stresses averaged through the space and during whole cardiac cycle, is adapted to the normal human fetal LV development.