A modified approach to determine the six cardiac bidomain conductivities

Abstract

Accurate values for the six cardiac bidomain conductivities are crucial for meaningful computational studies of conduction in cardiac tissue, and are yet to be determined by experimental means. Although previous studies have proposed an approach using a multi-electrode array to measure potentials, from which the conductivities can be determined, it has been found that the conductivities cannot be retrieved consistently when the noise in the potentials varies. This paper presents a protocol, which not only has been shown to retrieve the conductivities to a reasonable accuracy, but does so under the presence of a more appropriate additive Gaussian noise model, while using fewer computational resources. Through repetitions of the protocol, a comparison of two pre-fabricated 128 electrode arrays, one array with a square arrangement of electrodes and the other with a rectangular arrangement, was made against a 75-electrode array proposed in previous studies. Results indicated that the two pre-fabricated arrays were generally more capable of obtaining the cardiac conductivities to a higher degree of accuracy than the 75-electrode array. The 128-electrode rectangular array was orientated such that the length of the array first ran along the direction of the fibres, then was reorientated such that the length of the array ran perpendicular to the direction of the fibres. The 128-electrode rectangular array, when orientated in this manner, was more capable of retrieving the conductivities than the remainder of the arrays tested, and thus we suggest this arrangement be used during experimental trials.