Three-Dimensional Modeling of Active Muscle Tissue: The Why, The How, and The Future

Abstract Finite-element modeling of active skeletal muscle tissue presents a challenging set of problems. Muscle tissue is anisotropic, highly nonlinear, and quasi-compressible. It exhibits time-varying active stress generation, undergoes large deformations, and has highly complicated shapes, and interactions with several surrounding hard and soft tissues. Despite all these modeling challenges, the applications of muscle modeling are endless, and therefore 3D muscle modeling is a fruitful area of research investigation. The goals of this chapter are to: (i) illustrate the need for finite-element muscle modeling, (ii) provide a programmatic description of the key steps involved in creating 3D models, performing simulations, and generating insights from 3D models, and (iii) describe specific challenges and areas of opportunity for future innovations in the field of 3D modeling of active muscle tissue.

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