Numerical approaches to describe sarcomere functioning

Sarcomere dysfunction is a common factor in many cardiovascular diseases, hence a thorough understanding of sarcomere functioning is required to identify the main pathologic pathways in each disease. Mathematical modelling is one of the solutions to tackle this problem, since it is a powerful tool capable to describe any phenomenon in an interactive and fast way. Thus, this work will review the main theoretical mechanisms of sarcomere functioning, including its active and passive responses, as well as present the numerical models currently used to explicitly describe these distinct behaviors. Despite their impressive progress throughout the years, numerical models are still lacking on a more detailed description of crossbridge attachment and titin-actin interaction.