Smart smooth muscle spring-dampers

Abstract

Reports on smart smooth muscle spring-dampers. Pulsatile pressure in arteries produces mechanical oscillations. High frequency vibrations tend to produce mechanical structure injures. Vascular smooth muscle (VSM) could react modulating viscoelasticity to protect the arterial wall, filtering the highest harmonics component present in the large and rapid slope of blood pressure. The aim of this study was to evaluate the filtering performance exerted by VSM in the human common carotid artery (CCA) in normotensive (NT, smart springdampers turned on), hypertensive (HT, smart spring-dampers in action) and angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors-treated hypertensive patients (HT-treated, smart spring-dampers tuned), and in harvested human CCA segments (smart spring-dampers turned off).