Applicability of the lead field approach in virtual laboratory studies: comparison with full numerical simulations based on the bidomain model

Abstract

AbstractThe lead field approach is likely the most widely adopted method to compute electrocardiograms (ECGs) from electrophysiology (EP) simulations. Since this approach introduces several simplifying assumptions, this raises the question of its applicability in laboratory scenarios. Laboratory experiments can be used to validate and calibrate EP models by utilizing, amongst other techniques, unipolar and/or bipolar pseudo‐ECG measurements, which therefore need to be computed accurately. In this work, we present a computational study within a previously proposed validation framework based on the Antzelevitch's laboratory model of transmural wedges. In order to investigate the applicability of the lead field approach in this scenario, the unipolar and bipolar measurements computed from bidomain simulations are compared with measurements obtained with the lead field approach. Our study suggests that unipolar measurements are not well captured by the lead field approach, while bipolar measurements obtained with the lead field approach exhibit reasonable qualitative agreement with measurements computed from full bidomain simulations.