Living Heart Model
High-fidelity cardiac digital twin for in silico clinical trials. Simulate heart-device interaction to accelerate innovation, reduce costs, and improve safety.
Living Heart Model for In Silico Clinical Trials
The SIMULIA Living Heart Human Model brings the human heart to life as a high-fidelity, multiphysics digital twin, capturing the full complexity of its four-chamber anatomy and motion.
As a validated cardiac digital twin, it integrates structural mechanics, electrical activation, and physiological motion to reproduce realistic electromechanical behavior. This enables accurate virtual evaluation of cardiovascular devices, including valves, stents, and defibrillators, under physiologically relevant conditions.
By supporting predictive in silico testing while reducing reliance on physical prototypes and animal studies, this approach accelerates innovation, lowers development costs, and improves confidence in device safety and effectiveness.
Advancing Cardiovascular Science with a Validated Digital Twin
The Living Heart Model provides a powerful platform for medical device simulation, allowing engineers to model cardiac defects and diseased states, explore treatment options, and assess cardiovascular devices such as pacemakers, artificial valves, and vascular implants.
Devices can be evaluated under realistic physiological conditions to:
- Understand device interaction with heart tissue
- Predict performance across cardiac cycles
- Identify potential risks early in development
- Reduce reliance on animal and bench testing
Key Benefits of the Living Heart Model
Accelerate Cardiac Insight
Understand baseline cardiac behavior with human heart simulations
Advance Disease Exploration
Interactively update model parameters to study disease states and explore treatment options
Maximize Device Performance
Evaluate and improve cardiovascular devices (stents, artificial valves, pacemakers, etc.) within the beating heart
Elevate Clinical Decisions
Improve decision making by virtually testing device and/or treatment options on patient-specific models or large cohorts of virtual patients
SIMULIA Living Heart Model Key Features
Customizable Geometry
The CAD geometry is created natively in CATIA, allowing for high customizability through uniform scaling, parameter and manual morphing. It is based on new medical images of an average healthy male, with compliant geometry thereby facilitating extensions for CFD/FSI simulations.
Optimized FEM
Mesh quality and element selection have been optimized for improved performance. Myocardial tissue calibration and pericardial effects are enhanced for better fidelity, along with flexible methodologies for customizing fiber orientations. An adaptable model for simulating blood flow is implemented.
Validated Cardiac Response
The model response aligns with broader set of demographic metrics, with a direct procedure for pre-loaded heart geometry and improved valve morphology, particularly for the tricuspid valve. A new Purkinje network and electrical calibration generate accurate electrical activation and six-channel ECG.
Streamlined Process
Enhanced support for model definition through 3DEXPERIENCE reduces keyword edits, while a comprehensive user guide and expanded training materials (including those on geometry adaptation) improve usability. Grid job submission is supported on advanced hardware without core limits.
Living Heart Model Use Cases for Medical Device Simulation
Mitral Regurgitation Treatment Through 3D Modeling
Explore a groundbreaking study utilizing advanced 3D modeling to evaluate a novel annuloplasty ring for mitral regurgitation correction. This simulation integrates electro-mechanical and fluid dynamics, offering precise insights into heart valve function and treatment efficacy.
Advanced 3D Simulations for Pacemaker Innovation
Discover how advanced 3D simulations are transforming pacemaker lead evaluation. From insertion to curvature dynamics, explore groundbreaking insights into cardiac device performance.
Cardiovascular Stent Simulation and Cardiac Cycle Simulation
Explore advanced simulations evaluating stent deployment, durability, and fatigue under cardiac cycles. From precise 3D modeling to Goodman fatigue analysis, these studies reveal critical insights into stent performance and safety.
What is the Living Heart Project?
The Living Heart Project is a collaborative initiative led by Dassault Systèmes to develop and validate a realistic virtual model of the human heart. It brings together medical device companies, researchers, and clinicians to advance in silico testing and simulation-driven innovation. The project supports faster development, improved device validation, and the adoption of simulation in cardiovascular research and clinical applications.
The Living Heart Model was developed within the Living Heart Project, a translational initiative to advance the use of simulation in the delivery of safe and effective cardiovascular devices and clinical treatments.
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Explore the technological advancements, innovative methodologies, and evolving industry demands that are reshaping the world of Cardiac Digital Twin Simulation.
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