In vitro characterisation of arterial stiffening: From the macro- to the nano-scale

Accurate measurement of the material properties of arterial tissue is important for better characterisation of diseases and the development of reliable computational models. There are a number of in vitro techniques that are applied to study the biomechanical properties of arterial tissue. This review article presents data obtained using tensile testing, nanoindentation, scanning acoustic microscopy (SAM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Each of these techniques provides material property information at a different spatial resolution and in many ways are complementary techniques. The lack of consensus in the literature with regard to the appropriate stress and strain definitions that should be used when reporting tensile testing data is also highlighted. The potential of higher spatial resolution techniques, which provide data at micro-scale (nanoindentation and SAM) and nano-scale (AFM) for application to the characterisation of human aortic tissue are discussed. Finally, studies, which have examined age-related changed in the aorta at these different length scales, are highlighted.