Biomathematics seminar
Tuesday 10/02/07
Speaker: Kristen DeVault

Title: Modeling and Validation of a Blood Flow Model for the Circle of Willis

Abstract:
The goal of this work is the study of the influence of the topology and 
material properties of the Circle of Willis on cerebral blood flow. The 
Circle of Willis is a network of 16 interconnected vessel segments whose 
structure may change from patient to patient. To this end, it is important 
to maintain the geometrical complexity of the model to a minimum.

The smooth character of the solutions allows the use of high accuracy 
pseudo-spectral discretization methods. The numerical model is calibrated 
against velocity flow measurements provided by the group of Dr. Vera Novak 
(Harvard) through ensemble Kalman filtering. Preliminary results establishing
the feasibility of the proposed approach will be presented.