Berlin 2012 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 12: Focus: Nonlinear Dynamics of the Heart (with DY)
BP 12.5: Invited Talk
Wednesday, March 28, 2012, 11:30–12:00, MA 001
Synchronization as a mechanism of chaos control; Applications to cardiac arrhythmias. — •Flavio H. Fenton1, Stefan Luther1,2, Philip Bittihn2, Daniel Hornung2, Eberhard Bodenschatz2, and Robert F. Gilmour Jr1 — 12Department of Biomedical Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA — 21Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Goettingen, Germany
The heart is an excitable system, with electrical waves propagating in a coordinated manner to initiate a mechanical contraction. In pathologic states, normal electrical wave propagation can be disrupted, resulting in the development of spiral and scroll waves that repetitively excite the tissue. These waves are often unstable and break into multiple waves, a chaotic state that underlies cardiac fibrillation.
In this talk, we will discuss experimental and theoretical approaches for the control and termination of arrhythmias using low energy pulses. We will show how naturally occurring discontinuities in cardiac tissue conductivity can produce internal electrical activations following an electric field and how this *virtual electrode activations* can be used to synchronize and terminate arrhythmias with just 10% the energy of a standard defibrillation shock. Numerical simulations as well as experimental data from in vivo experiments will be presented along with a theory for the mechanism.