Applied Physics Seminar | Electrical Rotors Underlie Order and Disorder in the Fibrillating Heart

Abstract:

Fibrillation is a highly lethal irregular rhythm of the heart with a major clinical-societal burden. The mechanisms involved in the highly disorganized patterns of electrical impulse propagation that characterize fibrillation are still poorly understood and its therapies are sub-optimal. The talk will present optical mapping and computer simulation data with frequency and phase domains processing of spatio-temporal patterns of cardiac electrical activity to improve understanding of the arrhythmia. Experimental evidence will be presented to demonstrate that disorganized activation patterns during fibrillation can depend on self-sustained organized rotors of the electric impulses which spin at high frequencies. The universality of the rotors across mammals and some ionic factors that determine their dynamics, as well as remaining questions and challenges in clinical applications will be discussed.