AUTHOR=Muñoz-Moya Estefano , Rasouligandomani Morteza , Ruiz Wills Carlos , Chemorion Francis Kiptengwer , Piella Gemma , Noailly Jérôme 

TITLE=Unveiling interactions between intervertebral disc morphologies and mechanical behavior through personalized finite element modeling

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology

VOLUME=Volume 12 - 2024

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/bioengineering-and-biotechnology/articles/10.3389/fbioe.2024.1384599

DOI=10.3389/fbioe.2024.1384599

ISSN=2296-4185

ABSTRACT=Intervertebral Disc (IVD) Degeneration (IDD) is a significant health concern, potentially influenced by mechanotransduction. However, the relationship between the IVD phenotypes and mechanical behavior has not been thoroughly explored in local morphologies where IDD originates. This work unveils the interplays among morphological and mechanical features potentially relevant to IDD through Abaqus UMAT simulations. A groundbreaking automated method is introduced to transform a calibrated, structured IVD finite element (FE) model into 169 patient-personalized (PP) models through a mesh morphing process. Our approach accurately replicates the real shapes of the patient's Annulus Fibrosus (AF) and Nucleus Pulposus (NP) while maintaining the same topology for all models. Using segmented magnetic resonance images from the former project