Modeling the electro-mechanics and hemodynamics of the heart

Master advanced multi-physics modeling by building a complete cardiac simulator in Python that couples electrophysiology, tissue mechanics, and hemodynamics.

The heart is the organ responsible for pumping blood around your body. This pumping action is driven by a complex, tightly coordinated process where an electrical signal propagates through the heart muscle (myocardium) and triggers a mechanical contraction. To create realistic models of the heart, we need to couple its electrophysiology (the electrical signals) with cellular active tension (how muscle fibers generate force) and solid tissue mechanics (where the myocardium acts as an anisotropic, nonlinear, and nearly incompressible material). Furthermore, the heart does not work in isolation; it interacts dynamically with the vascular system to pump blood against arterial resistance.

In this project, we want to develop a fully coupled multi-physics cardiac simulator to model a complete heartbeat, from the initial electrical spark to the circulation of blood.

Goal

The goal is to simulate a complete cardiac cycle by integrating state-of-the-art open-source Python libraries. You will couple electrophysiology solvers (fenicsx-beat) with cellular force-generation models (crossbridge), 3D tissue mechanics (fenicsx-pulse), and a lumped-parameter model of the cardiovascular system (circulation). Using this coupled framework, you will investigate how electrical wave propagation and active tension impact both mechanical and hemodynamic biomarkers, such as ventricular pressure-volume loops, ejection fraction, stress, and strain.

Learning outcomes

• The fundamental principles of cardiac electrophysiology, solid mechanics, and hemodynamics.
• How to build, couple, and solve advanced multi-physics problems (including 0D-3D coupling) using FEniCSx and modern scientific Python libraries.

Qualifications

• The student should have a solid background in partial differential equations and Python programming.
• Familiarity with continuum mechanics, fluid dynamics, or multi-physics problems is an advantage but not required.

Supervisors

• Henrik Nicolay Finsberg
• Joakim Sundnes