Fig. 1.

Schematic overview of impact of mechanical cues on different physiological (black arrows) and pathophysiological (red arrows) processes. Mechanical cues play an important role in physiological processes, such as embryonic development, skin and wound repair, angiogenesis and vascular remodeling, and nervous system regeneration, neurodevelopment and maturation of the nervous system. Emerging evidence suggests that mechanical cues are crucial regulators of pathophysiological processes associated with various diseases, such as pulmonary fibrosis, neurodegenerative diseases, cardiac fibrosis, renal fibrosis, liver fibrosis, and cancer progression. This figure was inspired by open-access article ref. [24]. ECM, extracellular matrix; ECF, extracellular fluid viscosity. Created with BioRender.com