A Study on the Characteristics Influencing the Pressure at the Root of a Distributed One-Dimensional Model of Arterial Blood Flow

Blood pressure carries crucial information about the response of the arterial system to the beating heart. Extracting useful information from the blood pressure plays a significant role in the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease such as hypertension. There are many studies focusing on the existence of reflection waves in the ascending aorta and their influence on the amplitude of pressure. However, there is an ongoing debate about their origin, and the distance that a reflection wave can travel. In this study, a one-dimensional (1D) model of a series of bifurcations was used to analyse the effect of bifurcations on the pressure amplitude. A comparison was made between the pressure in the inlet of the model and in the terminal ends. Results showed an exponential decay with increasing numbers of bifurcations with no reflections reaching the inlet after the 7th generation of bifurcations. Therefore, a single reflection originating at the periphery may not be discernible at the aortic root.