Berlin 2012 – scientific programme
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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik
DY 22: Posters I
DY 22.15: Poster
Wednesday, March 28, 2012, 17:00–19:00, Poster A
Effects of mechanical motion on electrical excitation of the heart — •Stefan Fruhner1,2, Harald Engel1, and Markus Bär2 — 1Institut für Theoretische Physik, TU Berlin — 2Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Berlin
Computer models of cardiac excitation often include a very precise physiological description and accurately account for anatomical details like fibre orientation or heterogeneity of heart tissue but neglect cardiac motion. On the other hand it might be essential for a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of arrhythmias like tachycardia and fibrillation. To address this fact challenging mathematical approaches need to be implemented and thoroughly validated.
In this work we try to incorporate experimentally estimated motion into computer simulations. Time-resolved magnetic resonance images (MRI) were recorded in order to create finite element meshes that allow to map mechanical motion on statically performed simulations.
A tagged acquisition protocol was chosen so that cardiac motion can be extracted for a set of distinct points within the myocardial region. Myocardial fibre orientations were allocated algorithmically. Intra- and extracellular domains are treated separately utilizing a bidomain approach. The impact of cardiac motion on artificially generated biosignals like the electrocardiogram (ECG) or the magnetocardiogram (MCG) is demonstrated.
Our approach also offers the opportunity to calculate the mechanical stresses during cardiac contraction from experimental data.