Cardiopulmonary mechanical interactions. Insights from an anatomically detailed arterial-venous network model

We present a 1D-0D model that couples a 0D description of lung mechanics to the closed-loop Anatomically-Detailed Arterial-Venous Network (ADAVN) model. We show that our model can satisfactorily reproduce a set of cardiovascular indices of interest observed in healthy young males at rest. Next, we assess the impact of respiration on cardiac performance and on the periodicity and average values of pressure and flow waveforms in different vascular districts. In particular, our results confirm that respiration has a fundamental pumping function, which aids venous return, and that its action affects mainly the average of haemodynamic variables on the arterial side, while on the venous side it has a significant effect on wave periodicity and triggers a complex interplay in terms of waveform conformation. Additionally, we assess the sensitivity of model predictions to variations in model parameters through a local sensitivity analysis, both in the presence and absence of respiration, highlighting a strong relationship between the arterial and venous side of the model.