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A validated model of passive skeletal muscle to predict force and intramuscular pressure

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Abstract

The passive properties of skeletal muscle are often overlooked in muscle studies, yet they play a key role in tissue function in vivo. Studies analyzing and modeling muscle passive properties, while not uncommon, have never investigated the role of fluid content within the tissue. Additionally, intramuscular pressure (IMP) has been shown to correlate with muscle force in vivo and could be used to predict muscle force in the clinic. In this study, a novel model of skeletal muscle was developed and validated to predict both muscle stress and IMP under passive conditions for the New Zealand White Rabbit tibialis anterior. This model is the first to include fluid content within the tissue and uses whole muscle geometry. A nonlinear optimization scheme was highly effective at fitting model stress output to experimental stress data (normalized mean square error or NMSE fit value of 0.993) and validation showed very good agreement to experimental data (NMSE fit values of 0.955 and 0.860 for IMP and stress, respectively). While future work to include muscle activation would broaden the physiological application of this model, the passive implementation could be used to guide surgeries where passive muscle is stretched.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the National Institutes of Health: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD31476-12). The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge and thank Dr. Richard Lieber at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Dr. Sam Ward at the University of California, San Diego, and Dr. Shawn O’Connor at San Diego State University for providing the experimental in situ stress and intramuscular pressure data. The authors have no other disclosures or conflicts of interest to state.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Colorado State University, 1374 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO, 80523, USA

    Benjamin B Wheatley

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering – Engineering Mechanics, Michigan Technological University, 1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, MI, 49931, USA

    Gregory M Odegard

  3. Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Mayo Clinic, First Street SW, Rochester, MN, 55905, USA

    Kenton R Kaufman

  4. Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Biomedical Engineering, Colorado State University, 1374 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO, 80523, USA

    Tammy L Haut Donahue

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  1. Benjamin B Wheatley
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Correspondence to Tammy L Haut Donahue.

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Wheatley, B.B., Odegard, G.M., Kaufman, K.R. et al. A validated model of passive skeletal muscle to predict force and intramuscular pressure. Biomech Model Mechanobiol 16, 1011–1022 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10237-016-0869-z

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