Mathematical Modelling Support of Myocardial Damage Evolution in Chaga’s Disease

Abstract

Objectives: This article presents a preliminary in silico study to represent the progress of Chagas heart disea-se (ECCH). The objective of the research is to obtain a support based on the simulation, through a mathemati-cal model, of the conditions of each of the theories that try to explain the chagasic cardiac pathology to verify the behavior of the hemodynamic variables of the car-diovascular system and the control nervous by provi-ding theoretical information to resolve the controversy about the evolution of myocardial damage in the ECCH. Methods: The present study is based on previously published hemodynamic results, in a specific study on Chagas disease. These data were taken from a pre-vious investigation of patients with the disease, who presented the cine-angiographic signs of early myocardial damage and the evolution of the characteristic ECCH lesion, in one. Through the mathematical model, two different hypotheses on pathogenesis of chronic ECCH, the Neurogenic and the modified and unifying Neurogenic were represented. Results: When modifying the contractility and compliance parameters, the model outputs approached the patient data. While changes in nerve supply did not produce changes in hemodynamic variables. Discussion: These results underpin the theory that myocardial damage is not only a product of nerve damage, but is a direct consequence of the progressive changes in distensibility and contractility caused by the presence of ECCH, giving greater support to neurogenic theory. Modified and unifying with respect to that exposed by Koberle.

Keywords

• autonomic nervous system
• chagas cardiomyopathy
• computer simulation