Abstract
Cardiac arrhythmias are one of the most frequent causes of death worldwide. A popular biological model used to study arrhythmogenesis is the cultured cardiac cell monolayer, which provides a good trade-off between physiological relevance and experimental access. Excitation wave patterns are imaged using high-bandwidth detectors, producing large data sets that are typically analyzed manually. To make such analysis less time consuming and less subjective, we have designed and implemented a toolkit for segmentation and tracking of cardiac waves in optical mapping recordings. The toolkit is optimized for high-resolution detectors to accommodate the growing availability of inexpensive high-resolution detectors for life science imaging applications (e.g., scientific CMOS cameras). The software extracts key features of propagating waves, such as wavefront speed and entropy. The methods have been validated using synthetic data, and real-world examples are provided, showing a difference in conduction velocity between two different types of cardiac cell cultures.
Highlights
Cardiac arrhythmias such as ventricular or atrial fibrillation are a major factor in the occurrence of cardiac arrest, one of the most frequent causes of death worldwide, claiming 300,000–400,000 deaths annually in the United States alone [1]
cardiac monolayers (CCMs) can be grown in a controlled manner, allowing for manipulation of their spatial and functional organization
CCMs allow researchers to perform experiments that would not be practical in vivo
Summary
Cardiac arrhythmias such as ventricular or atrial fibrillation are a major factor in the occurrence of cardiac arrest, one of the most frequent causes of death worldwide, claiming 300,000–400,000 deaths annually in the United States alone [1]. Despite recent advances and decades of research, a precise insight into the mechanics of fibrillation is lacking [2]. A popular experimental model of arrhythmogenesis, or, more generally, signal propagation in excitable media, is cultured cardiac monolayers (CCMs) [3]. CCMs can give insight into the origins of reentrant waves and can be used to determine conditions that allow different wave topologies to occur [4]. Despite being structurally different from in vivo tissue, CCMs remain popular models of cardiac conduction due to their simplicity, controllability of growth, and ease of experimental access due to very little movement of the tissue and the absence of deep 3D structure. CCMs allow researchers to perform experiments that would not be practical in vivo
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