Computational Fluid Dynamic Model of Left Atrium to Analyze Hemodynamic Manifestation during Atrial Fibrillation

In this paper, we present a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model of left atrium (LA) to analyze the manifestation and progression of atrial fibrillation (AF) in terms of hemodynamic metrics. We propose a coupled lumped-CFD (0d-3d) pipeline to model and predict the pulsatile flow and pressure fields of three-dimensional cardiac chamber under the influence of sinus rhythm, high frequency AF (HF-AF) and LA remodeled AF, considering the interactions between the heart and the arterial system through a separately modeled 0d lumped hemodynamic cardiac model. A novel rhythm generator is modeled to generate modulated cardiac chamber compliance and decoupled auricular and ventricular contraction rate to synthesize variation in sinus rhythm and subsequent AF generation. CFD simulation were solved using subject specific CT scan. Systemic and pulmonary flow and pressure along with metrics related to wall shear stress in LA were derived. Left ventricular (LV) hemodynamic parameters associated with global cardio vascular evaluation like ejection fraction, stroke volume, cardiac output, etc. were also generated for all the rhythmic disturbance under consideration. The proposed 0d-3d coupled hemodynamic model of the LA can provide useful insights on the dynamics of AF manifestation and predict vulnerable regions in the cardiac chambers as well as arterial vasculature for probable thrombogenic plaque formation that leads to stroke and infraction, leading to heart failure.