Berlin 2015 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 29: Posters: Systems biology

BP 29.1: Poster

Tuesday, March 17, 2015, 14:00–16:00, Poster A

Control of ventricular tachycardia under myocardial ischemic conditions and infarction — •Edda Boccia and Stefan Luther — Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Am Fassberg 17, Göttingen, Germany

Myocardial ischemia arises when blood supply of substrates doesn’t meet tissue’s metabolic demands. It can degenerate to acute ischemia and infarction. Ischemia is followed by profound metabolic changes: hyperkalemia (increment of extracellular potassium), hypoxia (deprivation of oxygen supply) and acidosis (increment of acidity in the blood). We present a modified version of the Luo-Rudy I model, adopted to investigate action potential propagation under ischemia and infarction. The domain is represented by a 2D virtual sheet of myocardial tissue, where heterogeneity is introduced by subdividing it in three distinct zones: a central circular ischemic area (CZ), a ring-shaped border zone (BZ, linear transition between physiological and ischemic values) and normal tissue. As a first approximation, hyperkalemia and acidosis were simulated and parameters were changed in the CZ and in the BZ at each time after the onset of ischemia. We study the interaction of propagating waves with ischemic regions and the onset of cardiac arrhythmias, including ventricular tachycardia (VT) and fibrillation (VF). We investigate pinning and unpinning of rotating waves to and from infarction zones using pulsed electric fields. We will discuss the implications of our findings for the development and optimization of low energy control of cardiac arrhythmias including Low-Energy Anti-Fibrillation Pacing (LEAP, Luther & Fenton et al., Nature 2011).