Towards an interactive framework for upper airway modeling : integration of acoustic, biomechanic, and parametric modeling methods

The human upper airway anatomy consists of the jaw, tongue, pharynx, larynx, palate, nasal cavities, nostrils, lips, and adjacent facial structures. It plays a central role in speaking, mastication, breathing, and swallowing. The interplay and correlated movements between all the anatomical structures are complex and basic physiological functions, such as the muscle activation patterns associated with chewing or swallowing, are not well understood. This work creates a modeling framework as a bridge between such disciplines as linguistics, dentistry, biomechanics, and acoustics to enable the integration of physiological knowledge with interactive simulation methods. This interactive model of the upper airway system allows better understanding of the anatomical structures and their overall function. A three-dimensional computational modeling framework is proposed to mimic the behavior of the upper airway anatomy as a system by combining biomechanic, parametric, and acoustic modeling methods. Graphical user interface components enable the interactive manipulation of models and orchestration of physiological functions. A three-dimensional biomechanical tongue model is modified as a reference model of the modeling framework to demonstrate integration of an existing model and to enable interactivity and validation procedures. Interactivity was achieved by introducing a general-purpose fast linear finite element muscle model. Feasible behavior of the biomechanical tongue model is ensured by comparison with a reference model and matching the model to medical image data. In addition to the presented generic tongue model, individual differences in shape and function are important for clinical applications. Different medical image modalities may jointly enable guidance of the creation on individuals’ anatomy models. Automatic methods to extract shape and function are investigated to demonstrate the feasibility of upper airway image-based modeling for this modeling framework. This work may be continued in many other directions to simulate the upper airway for speaking, breathing, and swallowing. For example, progress has already been made to develop a complete vocal tract model whereby the tongue model, jaw model, and acoustic airway are connected. Further, it is planned to apply the same tissue modeling methods to represent other muscle groups and model the interaction with other anatomical substructures of the vocal tract such as the face, lips and soft palate.Applied Science, Faculty ofElectrical and Computer Engineering, Department ofGraduat