Abstract
The dynamical nature of cardiac arrhythmias has been investigated for decades by researchers from a wide range of disciplines. One long-standing unsettled issue involves whether the mechanism of functional reentry should be described by the “leading-circle” hypothesis or the “spiral-wave” hypothesis, which rely on inward and outward wave propagation, respectively. To address this issue, we investigated two-dimensional FitzHugh–Nagumo type models and found that inwardly propagating waves could occur in the spontaneous oscillatory mode, but not the excitable mode. However, such spontaneous oscillatory behavior is characterized by small-amplitude, sinusoidal oscillations that are fundamentally different from the stimulus-driven, excitable behavior of cardiac myocytes. This finding suggests that inward wave propagation, which is posited by the leading-circle hypothesis for the purpose of maintaining functional reentry, is unlikely to occur in cardiac tissue.
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