Re-entrant activity and its control
in a model of mammalian ventricular tissue
Short title: Model of ventricular re-entrant activity

V.N. Biktashev and A.V. Holden

July 27, 1996

Institute for Mathematical Problems in Biology, Pushchino, Moscow Region, 142292, Russia

Department of Physiology, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed

Abstract:

We characterize the meander of re-entrant excitation in a model of a sheet of mammalian ventricular tissue, and its control by resonant drift under feedback driven stimulation. The Oxsoft equations for excitability in a guinea pig single ventricular cell were incorporated in a two dimensional reaction-diffusion system to model homogeneous, isotropic tissue with a plane wave conduction velocity of 0.35 m/s. Re-entrant spiral wave solutions have a spatially extended transient motion (linear core) that settles down into rotation with an irregular period of 100-110 ms around an irregular, multi-lobed spiky core. In anisotropic tissue this would appear as a linear conduction block. The typical velocity of drift of the spiral wave induced by low amplitude resonant forcing is 0.4 cm/s.

Keywords: arrhythmia, ventricular fibrillation, re-entry, defibrillation, propagation, action potential

• 1 Introduction
• 2 The numerical model
• 3 Results
• 4 Discussion
• 5 Acknowledgments
• References
• A Appendix. Equations of Excitability of a Single Guinea Pig Ventricular Cell