The heart’s intricate myocardial architecture has been called the Gordian knot of anatomy, an impossible tangle of intricate muscle fibers. This complexity dictates equally complex cardiac motions that are difficult to mimic in physical systems. If these motions could be generated by a robotic system, then cardiac device testing, cardiovascular disease studies, and surgical procedure training could reduce their reliance on animal models, saving time, costs, and lives. This work introduces a bioinspired soft robotic left ventricle simulator capable of reproducing the minutiae of cardiac motion while providing physiological pressures. This device uses thin-filament artificial muscles to mimic the multilayered myocardial architecture. To demonstrate the device’s ability to follow the cardiac motions observed in the literature, we used canine myocardial strain data as input signals that were subsequently applied to each artificial myocardial layer. The device’s ability to reproduce physiological volume and pressure under healthy and heart failure conditions, as well as effective simulation of a cardiac support device, were experimentally demonstrated in a left-sided mock circulation loop. This work also has the potential to deliver faithful simulated cardiac motion for preclinical device and surgical procedure testing, with the potential to simulate patient-specific myocardial architecture and motion.

中文翻译：

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能够再现心肌生物力学的软体机器人人工左心室模拟器


心脏错综复杂的心肌结构被称为解剖学的戈尔迪结，是错综复杂的肌肉纤维不可能的缠结。这种复杂性决定了同样复杂的心脏运动，这些运动在物理系统中很难模拟。如果这些运动可以由机器人系统产生，那么心脏设备测试、心血管疾病研究和外科手术培训可以减少他们对动物模型的依赖，从而节省时间、成本和生命。这项工作介绍了一种仿生软机器人左心室模拟器，能够在提供生理压力的同时再现心脏运动的细节。该设备使用细丝人造肌肉来模拟多层心肌结构。为了证明该设备能够跟踪文献中观察到的心脏运动，我们使用犬心肌应变数据作为输入信号，随后将其应用于每个人工心肌层。该设备在健康和心力衰竭条件下再现生理体积和压力的能力，以及心脏支持设备的有效模拟，在左侧模拟循环回路中进行了实验证明。这项工作还有可能为临床前设备和外科手术测试提供忠实的模拟心脏运动，并有可能模拟患者特定的心肌结构和运动。