Optimizing ventricular fibers: uniform strain or stress, but not ATP consumption, leads to high efficiency

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of fiber orientation in the left ventricular (LV) wall on the ejection fraction, efficiency, and heterogeneity of the distributions of developed fiber stress, strain and ATP consumption. A finite element model of LV mechanics was used with active properties of the cardiac muscle described by the Huxley-type cross-bridge model. The computed variances of sarcomere length (SLvar), developed stress (DSvar), and ATP consumption (ATP(var)) have several minima at different transmural courses of helix fiber angle. We identified only one region in the used design space with high ejection fraction, high efficiency of the LV and relatively small SLvar, DSvar, and ATP(var). This region corresponds to the physiological distribution of the helix fiber angle in the LV wall. Transmural fiber angle can be predicted by minimizing SLvar and DSvar, but not ATP(var). If ATP(var) was minimized, then the transverse fiber angle was considerably underestimated. The results suggest that ATP consumption distribution is not regulating the fiber orientation in the heart.