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Updated: Jul 8, 2026
Mechanical Testing of Mouse Carotid Arteries: from Newborn to Adult
Published on: February 23, 2012
Biaxial biomechanics of aged human carotid arteries
Cindy van Loo1, Kailey A Stevens2, Taisiya Sigaeva3
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht (CARIM), Maastricht University, the Netherlands; Department of Kinesiology and Health Sciences, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
Background:
Virtual patient models require comprehensive knowledge of carotid tissue biomechanics across physiologically relevant deformation states and patient variation. This study aims to characterize the passive biomechanical behavior of the human common carotid artery (CCA) while incorporating the in situ axial pre-stretch, as well as exploring the effect of age, laterality, and sample orientation across CCA samples.
Methods:
Planar biaxial testing was performed on CCA segments from 10 human body donors (50% female; one young adult of 19 years and nine older adults of 78-98 years). A thick-walled Holzapfel-Gasser-Ogden constitutive model was fitted to the data and used to simulate inflation-extension experiments. Simulated inflation experiments incorporated the measured axial pre-stretch. Extension experiments explored the effect of axial stretching at constant pressure of 100 mmHg. Bilateral and regional (anterior-posterior and proximal-distal) differences were statistically compared at 60, 100 and 140 mmHg. Additionally, the effect of age was explored.
Results:
Minimal regional and bilateral differences were observed: the loaded inner diameter, circumferential stiffness and reduced axial force were larger in the right than in the left CCA, while axial material stiffness was larger in the left CCA. Circumferential stiffness was larger anteriorly than posteriorly at 60 mmHg. Aged human CCAs visually showed different mechanical behaviors than those from the young donor.
Conclusion:
This study quantifies the passive mechanical properties of the human CCA under physiological loading conditions. Minimal bilateral and regional differences in mechanical behavior were shown. Samples from the young donor behaved distinctively differently, exemplifying the effect of ageing.
