The Downs lab recently published an article describing a new method for representing the directional tissue stiffness imparted by aligned collagen fibrils in computational models of optic nerve head biomechanics. This is a challenging issue, especially in eye-specific models that the lab builds, because the collagen fiber orientation is both heterogeneous and depth-dependent through the thickness of the peripapillary sclera in each eye.

The Downs lab’s new approach bases the collagen fibril orientation on the eye-specific scleral and pial anatomy, which increases the reliability and accuracy of of their optic nerve head biomechanics simulations. They also published the Matlab code as supplemental data so that others in the research community can leverage their new approach:

Karimi A, Rahmati SM, Razaghi R, Girkin CA, Downs JC. Finite element modeling of the complex anisotropic mechanical behavior of the human sclera and pia mater. Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine. 2022 Jan;215:106618. doi: 10.1016/j.cmpb.2022.106618. PMID: 35026634
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