Dynamic modes of inflow jet in brain aneurysms.

Abstract

The transition of the inflow jet to turbulence is crucial in understanding the pathology of brain aneurysms. Previous works Le et al. (2010, 2013) have shown evidence for a highly dynamic inflow jet in the ostium of brain aneurysms. While it is highly desired to investigate this inflow jet dynamics in clinical practice, the constraints on spatial and temporal resolutions of in vivo data do not allow a detailed analysis of this transition. In this work, Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD) is used to identify the most energetic modes of the inflow jet in patient-specific models of internal carotid aneurysms via the utilization of high-resolution simulation data. It is hypothesized that dynamic modes are not solely controlled by the blood flow waveform at the parent artery. They are also dependent on jet-wall interaction phenomena. DMD analysis shows that the spatial extent of low- frequency modes corresponds well to the most energetic areas of the inflow jet. The high-frequency modes are short-lived and correspond to the flow separation at the proximal neck and the jet's impingement onto the aneurysmal wall. Low-frequency modes can be reconstructed at relatively low spatial and temporal resolutions comparable to ones of in vivo data. The current results suggest that DMD can be practically useful in analyzing blood flow patterns of brain aneurysms with in vivo data.