Search results for "CARDIAC ELECTROPHYSIOLOGY"
showing 10 items of 24 documents
Estimation of Location and Activation Time of Purkinje Myocardial Junctions from Sparse and Noisy Endocardial Electrical Samples
2017
The activation of the myocardial muscle is triggered by Purkinje-myocardial junctions (PMJs), which are the terminal sites of the specialised cardiac conduction system (CCS). Obtaining the location of the PMJs and other sources of endocardial ectopic activity would be desirable for building computer models of cardiac electrophysiology and planning ablation interventions. We present a method to estimate the location and activation times of endocardial electrical sources in a 3D model of the ventricles. The algorithm requires a set of discrete electrical samples on the endocardium, which can include errors in location and activation time. The estimated sources are properly placed with a locat…
Low-Cost Optical Mapping Systems for Panoramic Imaging of Complex Arrhythmias and Drug-Action in Translational Heart Models.
2017
[EN] Panoramic optical mapping is the primary method for imaging electrophysiological activity from the entire outer surface of Langendorff-perfused hearts. To date, it is the only method of simultaneously measuring multiple key electrophysiological parameters, such as transmembrane voltage and intracellular free calcium, at high spatial and temporal resolution. Despite the impact it has already had on the fields of cardiac arrhythmias and whole-heart computational modeling, present-day system designs precludes its adoption by the broader cardiovascular research community because of their high costs. Taking advantage of recent technological advances, we developed and validated low-cost opti…
Inverse estimation of terminal connections in the cardiac conduction system
2017
Modeling the cardiac conduction system is a challenging problem in the context of computational cardiac electrophysiology. Its ventricular section, the Purkinje system, is responsible for triggering tissue electrical activation at discrete terminal locations, which subsequently spreads throughout the ventricles. In this paper, we present an algorithm that is capable of estimating the location of the Purkinje system triggering points from a set of random measurements on tissue. We present the properties and the performance of the algorithm under controlled synthetic scenarios. Results show that the method is capable of locating most of the triggering points in scenarios with a fair ratio bet…
Towards High Resolution Computational Models of the Cardiac Conduction System: A Pipeline for Characterization of Purkinje-Ventricular-Junctions
2011
The cardiac conduction system (CCS) has been in the spot light of the clinical and modeling community in recent years because of its fundament role in physiology and pathophysiology of the heart. Experimental research has focused mainly on investigating the electrical properties of the Purkinje-ventricular-junctions (PVJs). The structure of the PVJs has only been described through schematic drawings but not thoroughly studied. In this work confocal microscopy was used with the aim of three-dimensional characterization of PVJs. Adult rabbit hearts were labeled with fluorescent dyes, imaged with confocal microscopy and Purkinje fibers differentiated from other cardiac tissue by their lack of …
Automatic estimation of Purkinje-Myocardial junction hot-spots from noisy endocardial samples: A simulation study
2017
The reconstruction of the ventricular cardiac conduction system (CCS) from patient-specific data is a challenging problem. High-resolution imaging techniques have allowed only the segmentation of proximal sections of the CCS from images acquired ex vivo. In this paper, we present an algorithm to estimate the location of a set of Purkinje-myocardial junctions (PMJs) from electro-anatomical maps, as those acquired during radio-frequency ablation procedures. The method requires a mesh representing the myocardium with local activation time measurements on a subset of nodes. We calculate the backwards propagation of the electrical signal from the measurement points to all the points in the mesh …
Modeling Drug Effects on Personalized 3D Models of the Heart: A Simulation Study
2010
[EN] The use of anti-arrhythmic drugs is common to treat heart rhythm disorders. Computational modeling and simulation are powerful tools that can be used to investigate the effects of specific drugs on cardiac electrophysiology. In this work a patient-specific anatomical heart model is built to study the effects of dofetilide, a drug that affects IKr current in cardiac cells. We study the multi-scale effects of the drug, from cellular to organ level, by simulating electrical propagation on tissue coupled cellular ion kinetics for several heart beats. Different cell populations configurations namely endocardial, midmyocardial and epicardial are used to test the effect of tissue heterogeneit…
Atrial Fibrosis Hampers Non-invasive Localization of Atrial Ectopic Foci From Multi-Electrode Signals: A 3D Simulation Study
2018
[EN] Introduction: Focal atrial tachycardia is commonly treated by radio frequency ablation with an acceptable long-term success. Although the location of ectopic foci tends to appear in specific hot-spots, they can be located virtually in any atrial region. Multi-electrode surface ECG systems allow acquiring dense body surface potential maps (BSPM) for non-invasive therapy planning of cardiac arrhythmia. However, the activation of the atria could be affected by fibrosis and therefore biomarkers based on BSPM need to take these effects into account. We aim to analyze the effect of fibrosis on a BSPM derived index, and its potential application to predict the location of ectopic foci in the …
Three-dimensional cardiac computational modelling: methods, features and applications
2015
[EN] The combination of computational models and biophysical simulations can help to interpret an array of experimental data and contribute to the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of complex diseases such as cardiac arrhythmias. For this reason, three-dimensional (3D) cardiac computational modelling is currently a rising field of research. The advance of medical imaging technology over the last decades has allowed the evolution from generic to patient-specific 3D cardiac models that faithfully represent the anatomy and different cardiac features of a given alive subject. Here we analyse sixty representative 3D cardiac computational models developed and published during the last fifty …
New epicardial mapping electrode with warming/cooling function for experimental electrophysiology studies
2010
Cardiac electrical activity is influenced by temperature. In experimental models, the induction of hypothermia and/or hyperthermia has been used for the study of mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmia. A system that allows for localized, controlled induction, besides simultaneously recording electrical activity in the same induced area, needs to be developed ad hoc. This article describes the construction and application of a new system capable of locally modifying the epicardial temperature of isolated hearts and of carrying out cardiac mapping with sufficient spatial resolution. The system is based on a thermoelectric refrigerator and an array of 128 stainless steel unipolar electrodes in encap…
A novel multielectrode for epicardial recording with temperature control based in Peltier cells
2009
Electrophysiological parameters of the myocardium are influenced by temperature. Working with experimental models of isolated heart, the analysis of modulating effect exerted by local changes of temperature can provide some information about the mechanisms of certain arrhythmias and their electrophysiological bases, such as ventricular fibrillation. Conventional multiple electrodes do not seem to be appropriate, being necessary the development of specific devices. The design and implementation of a device adapted to these requirements is presented in this paper. This is a multi-electrode able to reproduce located and controlled conditions of hypothermia and hyperthermia, in a determined are…