Simulation enabled search for explanatory mechanisms of the fracture healing process
Fig 4
This is an idealized representation of key features of the space of tibia fracture healing in matched mice that are part of the same experiment.
The height of the sketch represents the large interindividual variability, which is a product of each fracture being unique. Consequently, each healing process path is necessarily partially customized. Changing colors represent evolving subprocesses; the colors are not related to those used to represent the nine tissue types. The five short white bars on days 7 and 10 represent different tissue sections taken at comparable locations within different tibia fractures. The dotted path illustrates a trace of the healing process path for one of the five day-7 tibia fractures. Moving from day-7 to day-10 along the dotted path, the unshaded bar on day-10 indicates the illustration that we created, the day-10i tissue section. The two additional unshaded bars labeled a and b illustrate future extensions of the simulated Healing Process forward to day-14 and backward to day 4 along the same healing path. Two dashed gray lines illustrate that in humans fracture nonunion can occur. Absent interventions, nonunions in mice do not occur. The circumstances leading to nonunions in humans are unknown. The transition from one color to another occurs later toward the bottom, which illustrates that the pace of healing can be different from one fracture to another.