Network analysis of flow in glomeruli

Blood filtration in the kidneys is performed in tufts of narrow blood vessels called glomeruli that serve as the functional units of the organ. At these small scales, blood plasma behaves as Stokes fluid, and the flow rates through a piecewise-1D network are easily recovered by a linear Kirchhoff flow analysis. The introduction of red blood cells (RBCs), however, renders the flow highly nonlinear, and leads to a heterogeneous distribution of RBCs. Recent imaging efforts have unlocked rich datasets, enabling us to study these glomeruli through the lenses of graph theory and flow physics. This talk will explore these complex networks and present a quantitative analysis of flow through them, which will form the foundation of a statistical study of flow behaviour through an entire network of glomeruli.