Your browser version may not work well with NCBI's Web applications. More information here...
1: Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. 2006 Jul;291(1):H296-309. Epub 2006 Jan 6.
Related Articles, Links
Click here to read
Structural morphology of renal vasculature.

Nordsletten DA, Blackett S, Bentley MD, Ritman EL, Smith NP.

Bioengineering Institute, University of Auckland, Auckland 1001, New Zealand. d.nordsletten@auckland.ac.nz

An automatic segmentation technique has been developed and applied to two renal micro-computer tomography (CT) images. With the use of a 20-microm voxel resolution image, the arterial and venous trees were segmented for the rat renal vasculature, distinguishing resolving vessels down to 30 microm in radius. A higher resolution 4-microm voxel image of a renal vascular subtree, with vessel radial values down to 10 microm, was segmented. Strahler ordering was applied to each subtree using an iterative scheme developed to integrate information from the two segmented models to reconstruct the complete topology of the entire vascular tree. An error analysis of the assigned orders quantified the robustness of the ordering process for the full model. Radial, length, and connectivity data of the complete arterial and venous trees are reported by order. Substantial parallelism is observed between individual arteries and veins, and the ratio of parallel vessel radii is quantified via a power law. A strong correlation with Murray's Law was established, providing convincing evidence of the "minimum work" hypothesis. Results were compared with theoretical branch angle formulations, based on the principles of "minimum shear force," were inconclusive. Three-dimensional reconstructions of renal vascular trees collected are made freely available for further investigation into renal physiology and modeling studies.

Publication Types:
PMID: 16399870 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]