a slightly stronger correlation for healthy than diseased tissue (R 2 ¼ 0.692 vs 0.6387) (Fig 2). The circular variance of isolated media demonstrated a significantly lower correlation with Young's modulus (R 2 ¼ 0.3014). Under high-strain, oscillatory conditions, represented by the dynamic modulus E*, AA, TA, and TAA tissue collectively showed a moderate correlation with whole-wall circular variance (R 2 ¼ 0.2397), and a stronger correlation with isolated media (R 2 ¼ 0.331), whereas neither the whole wall nor media of abdominal aortic aneurysm tissue showed any correlation with E*.Conclusions: Our results provide evidence that under conditions of low strain, the tensile properties of the aorta arise from the vascular wall in its entirety, whereas under high strain conditions approximating physiologic stresses, the architecture of the media provides a relatively greater contribution. Furthermore, we have demonstrated that abdominal aortic aneurysm tissue, uniquely, demonstrates a lack of coherence between its biomechanical properties and histologic structure.

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