Schölzel2015 - Modelica implementation of the Seidel-Herzel model of the human baroreflex (v1.6)

This project contains a Modelica implementation of the model of the human baroreflex developed by H. Seidel in his PhD thesis (Seidel 1997) under the supervision of H. Herzel. We published and presented this implementation at the 2015 International Modelica Conference.

The Seidel-Herzel model (SHM) describes the autonomic control of the heart rate in humans at a high level of abstraction as a hybrid (discrete and continuous), deterministic, quantitative, macro-level model. All effects are described on the organ level, including the time course of systemic arterial blood pressure generated by the pumping of the heart; the Windkessel effect of the expanding arteries dampening the initial rise in blood pressure; the arterial baroreceptors generating a neural signal depending on the absolute value and the increase in blood pressure; the autonomic nervous system emitting norepinephrine and acetylcholine as hormone and neurotransmitter based on signals from the baroreceptor and the lungs; and the cardiac conduction system with the SA node as main pacemaker and the AV node as a fallback system.

The model is able to simulate several relevant disease conditions such as first and second degree atrioventricular block (Seidel 1997), carotid sinus hypersensitivity (Seidel and Herzel 1998), congestive heart failure (Kotani et al. 2005), and primary autonomic failure (Kotani et al. 2005) as well as treatment options such as the administration of atropine or metoprolol (Kotani et al. 2005). It is also especially interesting with regard to its dynamical properties such as the emergence of Mayer waves (Seidel 1997), bifurcations (Seidel and Herzel 1998) and cardiorespiratory synchronization (Kotani et al. 2002).

The current version of the model can also be found at https://github.com/CSchoel/shm.