Modeling Reactive Hyperemia to Better Understand and Assess Microvascular Function: A Review of Techniques

Reactive hyperemia is a well-established technique for the non-invasive evaluation of the peripheral microcirculatory function, measured as the magnitude of limb re-perfusion after a brief period of ischemia. Despite widespread adoption by researchers and clinicians alike, many uncertainties remain surrounding interpretation, compounded by patient-specific confounding factors (such as blood pressure or the metabolic rate of the ischemic limb). Mathematical modeling can accelerate our understanding of the physiology underlying the reactive hyperemia response and guide in the estimation of quantities which are difficult to measure experimentally. In this work, we aim to provide a comprehensive guide for mathematical modeling techniques that can be used for describing the key phenomena involved in the reactive hyperemia response, alongside their limitations and advantages. The reported methodologies can be used for investigating specific reactive hyperemia aspects alone, or can be combined into a computational framework to be used in (pre-)clinical settings.