Blood flow dynamics revealed in the heart could help prevent cardiovascular diseases

One in three people will die from a cardiovascular disease. Often these diseases, which include strokes and heart attacks, strike without warning. Understanding the precursors of these diseases is crucial for prevention, and increasingly, researchers are looking to biomarkers of cardiac efficiency.

Simulations of intracardiac flows have been conducted before, but the detailed analysis of the mechanisms behind the formation and evolution of the vortex ring — a key indicator of healthy heart pumping — has not been performed. To better understand intracardiac flows, Lazpita et al. conducted a computational fluid dynamics simulation of the left ventricle and analyzed the data with a combination of two common modal decomposition methods — proper orthogonal decomposition and higher-order dynamic mode decomposition.

The method allowed the researchers to break down the complex flow fields into their fundamental features, which enabled them to understand how the vortex rings form and evolve. The results showed the analysis method can reveal underlying structures in even very complex and dynamic flow systems. Combining two decomposition methods also gave the researchers complementary insights into the flow mechanisms.

“The significance of this study lies in its capacity to address this knowledge gap by integrating high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics with advanced data-driven methodologies,” said author Eneko Lazpita. “This integration facilitates a more profound comprehension of the formation, evolution, and variation of flow patterns under diverse conditions.”

The researchers believe their methods can be used to help better analyze other cardiac flows and identify biomarkers of cardiac dysfunction, which could be used in clinical settings. Along with medical imaging data, the findings could also one day contribute to interpreting patient-specific results.

Source: “Characterizing intraventricular flow patterns via modal decomposition techniques in idealized left ventricle models,” by E. Lazpita, M. Neidlin, J. Garicano-Mena, and S. Le Clainche, Physics of Fluids (2026). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0326659 .