Published online before print September 19, 2005, doi: 10.1161/01.HYP.0000184390.27545.40
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(Hypertension. 2005;46:652.)
© 2005 American Heart Association, Inc.
Editorial Commentaries |
Modeling the Vasculature
A Judicious Approach?
From the Department of Pharmacology, University of Aarhus, Denmark.
Correspondence to Prof. Michael J. Mulvany, Department of Pharmacology, University of Aarhus, University Park 240, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark, Tel. +45 8942 1711, Fax +45 8612 8804, mm@farm.au.dk
An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract. |
Although William Hazlitt believed that "rules and models destroy genius and art,"1 it was the firm belief of Cecil Murray that "physiological organization, like gravitation, is a stubborn fact."2 Thus, Murray maintained that "organization is a legitimate field for scientific inquiry and not an affair of reflective judgment," and that one of the objectives of vascular science should therefore be to uncover the laws that underlie the remarkable similarities of the vascular architecture in many species. In this issue, Pries et al3 present an update of their previous models of the vasculature,4,5 showing that with appropriate coefficients, a comparatively small number of parameters can simulate real vascular trees. The meticulousness and sophistication of their work is not in doubt, but does it advance our understanding of why the vasculature is organized the way it is?
There are various approaches to modeling. One approach, such as the classic cardiovascular model of Guyton,6 is to identify as many components of the system as possible and to insert known characteristics of these and their known interconnections, and then to observe how the model operates.7 Such an approach can lead to new insights as to the parameters of importance, in this case, the apparent role of pressure-natriuresis. Another approach is to find simple relationships that explain a variety of phenomena, as did Watson and Crick regarding the structure of DNA.8 A third approach is to use a known physical principle to explain a complex system, and this was the approach of Murray.2,9 In all
Related Article:
Hypertension 2005 46: 725-731.
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