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Effect of rehabilitation exercise durations on the dynamic bone repair process by coupling polymer scaffold degradation and bone formation

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Abstract

Implantation of biodegradable scaffold is considered as a promising method to treat bone disorders, but knowledge of the dynamic bone repair process is extremely limited. In this study, based on the representative volume cell of a periodic scaffold, the influence of rehabilitation exercise duration per day on the bone repair was investigated by a computational framework. The framework coupled scaffold degradation and bone remodeling. The scaffold degradation was described by a function of stochastic hydrolysis independent of mechanical stimulation, and the bone formation was remodeled by a function of the mechanical stimulation, i.e., strain energy density. Then, numerical simulations were performed to study the dynamic bone repair process. The results showed that the scaffold degradation and the bone formation in the process were competitive. An optimal exercise duration per day emerged. All exercise durations promoted the bone maturation with a final Young’s modulus of 1.9 ± 0.3 GPa. The present study connects clinical rehabilitation and fundamental research, and is helpful to understand the bone repair process and further design bone scaffold for bone tissue engineering.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Nos. 31300780, 11272091, 11422222, 31470043, 11772093), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2242016R30014) and partially supported by the National 973 Basic Research Program of China (No. 2013CB733800) and ARC (FT140101152). N.M.P. is supported by the European Commission H2020 under the Graphene Flagship Core 1 No. 696656 (WP14 “Polymer Composites”) and FET Proactive “Neurofibre” Grant No. 732344.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biomechanics Laboratory, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, 210096, People’s Republic of China

    Quan Shi, Qiang Chen & Zhi-Yong Li

  2. Laboratory of Bio-Inspired and Graphene Nanomechanics, Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering, University of Trento, 38123, Trento, Italy

    Nicola Pugno

  3. School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London, E14NS, UK

    Nicola Pugno

  4. Ket Lab, Edoardo Amaldi Foundation, Italian Space Agency, Via del Politecnico snc, 00133, Rome, Italy

    Nicola Pugno

  5. School of Chemistry, Physics and Mechanical Engineering, Queensland University of Technology(QUT), Brisbane, QLD, 4001, Australia

    Zhi-Yong Li

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  1. Quan Shi
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Correspondence to Qiang Chen or Zhi-Yong Li.

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Shi, Q., Chen, Q., Pugno, N. et al. Effect of rehabilitation exercise durations on the dynamic bone repair process by coupling polymer scaffold degradation and bone formation. Biomech Model Mechanobiol 17, 763–775 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10237-017-0991-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10237-017-0991-6

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