Fading Memory Formulation for Active Stress Fibre Contractility

摘要

Cytoskeletal alignment and morphological changes in cells under conditions of cyclic stretching have been reported in several in-vitro studies. Of particular interest is the experimental work of Wille et al. [1] in which the contractile response of fibroblast stress fibres was isolated and quantified by testing both untreated cells and cells treated with Cytochalasin-D.rnIn the current study the constitutive framework of Deshpande et al. [2] is used to model the active contractile response of cells subjected to cyclic loading. Simulations are performed in which the loading frequency and maximum strain are varied, based the in-vitro study of Wille et al. [1]. The incorporation of a fading memory strain rate formulation into the constitutive framework of Deshpande et al. [2] allows for the computation of complex patterns of force response observed experimentally.