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Investigating the Mechanical Behavior of Clot Analogues Through Experimental and Computational Analysis

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Abstract

With mechanical thrombectomy emerging as the new standard of care for stroke treatment, clot analogues provide an extremely useful tool in the testing and design of these treatment devices. The aim of this study is to characterise the mechanical behavior of thrombus analogues as a function of composition. Platelet-contracted clot analogues were prepared from blood mixtures of various hematocrits. Mechanical testing was performed whereby clots were subjected to unconfined compression between two rigid plates. Two loading protocols were imposed: cyclic compression for 10 cycles at a constant strain-rate magnitude; stress-relaxation at a constant applied compressive strain. A hyper-viscoelastic constitutive law was identified and calibrated based on the experimental mechanical test data. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) investigated the clot microstructure at various time-points. Clot analogue composition was found to strongly affect the observed mechanical behavior. The SEM found that the microstructure of the clot analogues was affected by the storage solution and age of the clot. The proposed hyper-viscoelastic constitutive model was found to successfully capture the material test data. The results presented in this study are of key importance to the evaluation and future development mechanical thrombectomy devices and procedures.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of Cerenovus, the Irish Research Council Enterprise Partnership Scheme and the NUI Galway Hardiman Research Scholarship for this research. PMcG and RMcC acknowledge funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program.

Conflict of interest

S.J reports grants from Irish Research Council, grants and non-financial support from Cerenovus, during the conduct of the study; grants and non-financial support from Cerenovus, outside the submitted work. PMcG and RMcC acknowledge funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program, under grant agreement No. 777072.

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Author notes

  1. Peter E. McHugh and J. Patrick McGarry are Joint senior authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biomechanics Research Centre (BioMEC), Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering, National University of Ireland Galway, Galway, Ireland

    Sarah Johnson, Peter E. McHugh & J. Patrick McGarry

  2. Cerenovus Galway Neuro-Technology Centre, Johnson & Johnson, Galway, Ireland

    Ray McCarthy & Michael Gilvarry

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  1. Sarah Johnson
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Correspondence to J. Patrick McGarry.

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Associate Editor Andreas Anayiotos oversaw the review of this article.

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Johnson, S., McCarthy, R., Gilvarry, M. et al. Investigating the Mechanical Behavior of Clot Analogues Through Experimental and Computational Analysis. Ann Biomed Eng 49, 420–431 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-020-02570-5

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