Rheology of Biological and Bio-Artificial Fluids
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31265/7cvfy049Abstract
Although rheology is not widely utilized in medical research as compared to polymer science, it can provide valuable contributions wherever biological fluids are studied. Rheology applies a certain mechanical load to the sample and the receiving flow properties are measured. This can help to investigate the flow behavior of biological fluids under simulated “natural” conditions and achieve a better understanding of the flow behavior of these fluids.
This study focused on investigating the flow behavior of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF, human) and synovial fluid (SF, horse). A closer look at CSF and SF shows that these biological fluids exhibit certain similarities to polymer solutions. CSF and SF are aqueous solutions which contain certain amounts of macromolecules, such as different proteins. These macromolecular components are only present in low concentrations; however, they are expected to be responsible for the specific flow behavior. In order to support this relation, corresponding artificial bio-fluids were prepared and rheologically characterized following the same procedure as for the biological fluids. Specific interactions in such biological fluids can be reflected by viscoelasticity. Therefore CSF, SF and the relevant artificial fluids were compared based on their viscoelastic behavior.
The overall goal is to gain a better understanding of the rheological behavior of these biological fluids and their response to applied mechanical load in shear flow. Additionally, it is investigated whether rheological measurements can aid clinical practice for disorders involving CSF or SF.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Thessa-Carina Bauer, Elke Bradt, Sabine Hild, Andreas Gruber, Tobias Rossmann, Francisco Ruiz-Navarro, Johannes Oberndorfer, Harald Stefanits, Milan Kracalik
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