Fig. 3.

Wall Shear Stresses in Regions of the Human Carotid Artery Bifurcation Relatively Resistant or Susceptible to Atherosclerosis. This color-coded model of the human common carotid artery bifurcation displays the pattern of time-averaged wall shear stress magnitudes, calculated from noninvasive MRI and ultrasound flow measurements in normal subjects (see Dai et al., 2004 (31) for details of fluid mechanical calculations). Prototypic “athero-protective” and “athero-prone” waveforms representative of those present in the distal internal carotid artery (a lesion-resistant region) and the carotid sinus (a lesion-susceptible region), respectively, were then derived for use as input stimuli in the Dynamic Flow System (see Figure 2).