Shock-induced arrhythmogenesis in the human heart: A computational modelling study

Miguel O Bernabeu, Mikael Wallman, Blanca Rodriguez

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Electrical defibrillation by application of a strong shock to the heart is the only effective treatment against lethal cardiac arrhythmias such as ventricular fibrillation. A large body of experimental and computational research has been devoted to understanding shock-induced effects on the heart in an attempt to improve defibrillation efficacy. However, most of the research has been performed in small animal hearts, and in particular rabbits. The difference in size between rabbits and humans might limit the extrapolation of the results to the clinical setting. In this paper, we present, for the first time, computer simulations of shock-induced effects on a human ventricular model with realistic ion channel dynamics and fibre architecture. Bidomain simulations using the human ventricular model were performed using the Chaste open source simulation package. The parallel performance of the software package was highly improved in order to meet the computational requirements of these kind of studies.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2010 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology
Pages760-3
Number of pages4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 11 Nov 2010

Publication series

Name
PublisherIEEE
ISSN (Print)1094-687X
ISSN (Electronic)1558-4615

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • Action Potentials
  • Arrhythmias, Cardiac
  • Computer Simulation
  • Electric Stimulation
  • Electromagnetic Fields
  • Heart Conduction System
  • Humans
  • Models, Cardiovascular

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