Computer simulations of successful defibrillation in decoupled and non-uniform cardiac tissue

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to investigate the origin and effect of virtual electrode polarization in uniform, decoupled and non-uniform cardiac tissue during field stimulation. A discrete bidomain model with active membrane behaviour was used to simulate normal cardiac tissue as well as cardiac tissue that is decoupled due to fibrosis and gap junction remodelling. Various uniform and non-uniform electric fields were applied to the external domain of uniform, decoupled and non-uniform resting cardiac tissue as well as cardiac tissue in which spiral waves were induced. Field stimulation applied on non-uniform tissue results in more virtual electrodes compared with uniform tissue. The spiral waves were terminated in decoupled tissue, but not in uniform, homogeneous tissue. By gradually increasing local differences in intracellular conductivities, the amount and spread of virtual electrodes increased and the spiral waves were terminated. Fast depolarization of the tissue after field stimulation may be explained by intracellular decoupling and spatial heterogeneity present in normal and pathological cardiac tissue. We demonstrated that termination of spiral waves by means of field stimulation can be achieved when the tissue is modelled as a non-uniform, anisotropic bidomain with active membrane behaviour.