In earlier studies we found that the three-element windkessel, although an almost perfect load for isolated heart studies, does not lead to accurate estimates of total arterial compliance. To overcome this problem, we introduce an inertial term in parallel with the characteristic impedance. In seven dogs we found that ascending aortic pressure could be predicted better from aortic flow by using...

Compared with arterial hemodynamics, there has been relatively little study of venous hemodynamics. We propose that the venous system behaves just like the arterial system: waves propagate on a time-varying reservoir, the windkessel, which functions as the reverse of the arterial windkessel. During later diastole, pressure increases exponentially to approach an asymptotic value as inflow contin...

Cerebral blood flow responses to transient blood pressure challenges are frequently attributed to cerebral autoregulation (CA), yet accumulating evidence indicates vascular properties like compliance are also influential. We hypothesized that middle cerebral blood velocity (MCAv) dynamics during or following a transient blood pressure perturbation can be accurately explained by the windkessel m...

To facilitate the analysis of aortic-ventricular coupling, simplified models of aortic input properties have been developed, such as the three-element Windkessel. Even though the impedance spectrum of the Windkessel reproduces the gross features of the real aortic input impedance, it fails to reproduce many of its details. In the present study we assessed the physiological significance of the d...

We extend our recently published windkessel-wave interpretation of vascular function to the wave intensity analysis (WIA) of left ventricular (LV) filling dynamics by separating the pressure changes due to the windkessel from those due to traveling waves. With the use of LV compliance, the change in pressure due solely to LV volume changes (windkessel pressure) can be isolated. Inasmuch as the ...

The Windkessel properties of the vasculature are known to play a significant role in buffering arterial pulsations, but their potential importance in dampening low-frequency fluctuations in cerebral blood flow has not been clearly examined. In this study, we quantitatively assessed the contribution of arterial Windkessel (peripheral compliance and resistance) in the dynamic cerebral blood flow ...

The Windkessel outflow models, describing the relation between blood pressure and flow, are commonly used for modeling the truncated downstream vasculature bed in the arterial system. By means of a characteristic approach, a unified formalism of characteristic boundary conditions was proposed in the present work. A novel defined parameter, termed the reflection coefficient, is convenient to qua...

Different combinations of the artero-ventricular coupling design (numerical, physical and hybrid) and the arterial system structure (four-element standard, simplified, modified and three-element three-lump "ladder" Windkessel) have been applied in an open loop circulatory model to test their influence on selected ventricular and circulatory variables. Numerical investigations have shown that a ...

Arterial windkessel mechanisms and arterial pressure (AP) low frequency (LF) waves were investigated by means of simple lumped models of a compliant resistant/arterial tree and of flow regulation in peripheral vascular districts (PVDs) with three types of feedback: 1) delay, 2) Van der Pol oscillator, 3) relay; all were able to actively compensate flow changes and to simulate peripheral LF vaso...