Cardiac valve diseases are known to be an important public-health problem. Mitral Valve (MV) regurgitation (MR), also known as mitral insufficiency, is one of the most important of them. The regurgitation is either caused by a pathology of the valve itself (primary MR), or it is the consequence of a pathology of the myocardium (secondary MR).

Primary MR usually associates lesions of different components of the valve, leading to a prolapse of the leaflet in the left atrium. Repair surgery is the gold-standard treatment. Functional assessment of the repair results is performed with echocardiography. One of the difficulties is that objective consequences of the repair remain still not well-known essentially because of limited means for measurement: new quantitative tools are

needed. A thorough understanding of the dynamics of the mitral apparatus (left atrial and ventricular wall, annulus, leaflets, chordae tendineae, papillary muscles) is imperative for accurate diagnosis and focused treatment of MV pathology. This project aims to contribute to this major issue, with the following two main objectives:

(1) Evaluate the biophysical consequences of mitral valve repair. In particular, tissue remodeling and ventricular flow will be evaluated by magnetic resonance imaging, and chordae tension will be measured using an innovative device.

(2) Design numerical tools, for cardiac hemodynamics, fluid-structure interaction, and myocardium biomechanics, to have an in silico counterpart of the in vivo data obtained by tension measurement and imaging. These tools will be used to analyze the consequences of mitral repair. In the longer term, they will be used to assess and improve implantable devices, like artificial neochordae, annuloplasty rings, artificial valves.