Digital volume correlation for the characterization of musculoskeletal tissues: Current challenges and future...

Area of Science:

• Biomechanics
• Materials Science
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Biological tissues are complex hierarchical materials with heterogeneous mechanical properties across scales.
• Characterizing tissue mechanics is challenging due to scale separation and heterogeneity.
• Image-based methods are needed to measure internal strain fields accurately.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review the applications of Digital Volume Correlation (DVC) in studying musculoskeletal tissue deformation.
• To highlight the potential and challenges of DVC in biological tissue analysis.
• To discuss future perspectives for DVC in scientific and clinical applications.

Main Methods:

• Digital Volume Correlation (DVC) as an image-based experimental approach.
• Application of DVC to musculoskeletal tissues at various dimensional scales.
• Review of DVC applications over the past two decades.

Main Results:

• DVC accurately measures internal strain fields in biological tissues under complex loading.
• Examples of DVC applications in musculoskeletal tissue deformation are presented.
• The review details the potential and challenges of using DVC for tissue characterization.

Conclusions:

• DVC is a powerful technique for analyzing the mechanical behavior of biological tissues.
• Future directions include fast analysis, soft tissue applications, high-precision methods, and clinical integration.
• DVC offers unique insights into tissue mechanics across multiple scales.