**2.4. Mathematical models and simulations**

Using mathematical models, the mechanics of the membrane cortex structures has been simulated. Using a worm-like-chain model with surface and bending energy, the forcedisplancement relations for the spectrin network of RBCs have been described (Discher, Boal et al.,1998; Dubus and Fournier,2006). The viscoelastic properties of the RBC membrane was described using an effective continuum membrane model that simulates a finitethickess 2-D continuum plane model with in-plane shear modulus and bending modulus (Dao, Lim et al.,2003). Recently developed numerical models accurately describes the complex viscoelastic properties of RBCs deformabilty (Fedosov, Caswell et al.,2010).
