Feedback Control of Resonant Drift as a Tool for Low Voltage Defibrillation

I. V. Biktasheva, S. W. Morgan, G. Plank, V. N. Biktashev,

Paper submitted: 2008/09/07. Conference talk delivered: 2008/09/16. Paper accepted: 2008/09/26

Resonant drift of re-entry occurs in response to repetitive stimulation with period equal to that of the re-entry. Feedback controlled resonant drift drives re-entry out from excitable tissue, so may be used as antiarrthymic or defibrillation strategy. To test it in realistic computer simulations, we used monodomain and bidomain description of the tissue, rectangular 2D and 3D geometry, and anatomically realistic rabbit ventricles geometry, with Barkley, Drouhard-Roberge-Beeler-Reuter, and Courtemanche-Ramirez-Nattel kinetics models. Re-entries terminated at a fraction of the conventional shock strength. The success depends on the detailes of the feedback protocol. The simulations motivate experimental testing of the proposed low-voltage defibrillation method, which will be most productive in conjunction with simulations.