Meandering Spiral Waves Research Articles

Spiral wave chimeras in nonlocally coupled bicomponent oscillators.

Chimera states in nonidentical oscillators have received extensive attention in recent years. Previous studies have demonstrated that chimera states can exist in a ring of nonlocally coupled bicomponent oscillators even in the presence of strong parameter heterogeneity. In this study, we investigate spiral wave chimeras in two-dimensional nonlocally coupled bicomponent oscillators where oscillators are randomly divided into two groups, with identical oscillators in the same group. Using phase oscillators and FitzHugh-Nagumo oscillators as examples, we numerically demonstrate that each group of oscillators supports its own spiral wave chimera and two spiral wave chimeras coexist with each other. We find that there exist three heterogeneity regimes: the synchronous regime at weak heterogeneity, the asynchronous regime at strong heterogeneity, and the transition regime in between. In the synchronous regime, spiral wave chimeras supported by different groups are synchronized with each other by sharing a same rotating frequency and a same incoherent core. In the asynchronous regime, the two spiral wave chimeras rotate at different frequencies and their incoherent cores are far away from each other. These phenomena are also observed in a nonrandom distribution of the two group oscillators and the continuum limit of infinitely many phase oscillators. The transition from synchronous to asynchronous spiral wave chimeras depends on the component oscillators. Specifically, it is a discontinuous transition for phase oscillators but a continuous one for FitzHugh-Nagumo oscillators. We also find that, in the asynchronous regime, increasing heterogeneity leads irregularly meandering spiral wave chimeras to rigidly rotating ones.

Recurrence quantification analysis for fine-scale characterisation of arrhythmic patterns in cardiac tissue

This paper uses recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) combined with entropy measures and organization indices to characterize arrhythmic patterns and dynamics in computer simulations of cardiac tissue. We performed different simulations of cardiac tissues of sizes comparable to the human heart atrium. In these simulations, we observed four classic arrhythmic patterns: a spiral wave anchored to a highly fibrotic region resulting in sustained re-entry, a meandering spiral wave, fibrillation, and a spiral wave anchored to a scar region that breaks up into wavelets away from the main rotor. A detailed analysis revealed that, within the same simulation, maps of RQA metrics could differentiate regions with regular AP propagation from ones with chaotic activity. In particular, the combination of two RQA metrics, the length of the longest diagonal string of recurrence points and the mean length of diagonal lines, was able to identify the location of rotor tips, which are the active elements that maintain spiral waves and fibrillation. By proposing low-dimensional models based on the mean value and spatial correlation of metrics calculated from membrane potential time series, we identify RQA-based metrics that successfully separate the four different types of cardiac arrhythmia into distinct regions of the feature space, and thus might be used for automatic classification, in particular distinguishing between fibrillation driven by self-sustaining chaos and that created by a persistent rotor and wavebreak. We also discuss the practical applicability of such an approach.

Meander pattern of spiral wave and the spatial distribution of its cycle length.

One of the most interesting dynamics of rotating spiral waves in an excitable medium is meandering. The tip of a meandering spiral wave moves along a complex trajectory, which often takes the shape of an epitrochoid or hypotrochoid with inward or outward petals. The cycle lengths (CLs) of a meandering spiral wave are not constant; rather, they depend on the meandering dynamics. In this paper, we show that the CLs take two mean values, outside T^{out} and inside T^{in} the meandering trajectory with a ratio of T^{in}/T^{out}=(n+1)/n for the inward and (n-1)/n for the outward petals, where n is the number of petals in the tip trajectory. We illustrate this using four models of excitable media and prove this result. These formulas are shown to be suitable for a meandering spiral wave in an anatomical model of the heart. We also show that the effective periods of overdrive pacing of meandering spiral waves depend on the electrode location relative to the tip trajectory. Overall, our approach can be used to study the meandering pattern from the CL data; it should work for any type of dynamics that produces complex tip trajectories of the spiral wave, for example, for a drift due to heterogeneity.

Effects of dynamic change of action potential on evolution behavior of spiral wave

It is observed in cardiac patients that the steepnesses of action potential duration (APD) restitution curve of cardiomyocytes in different regions of the ventricle are significantly different from region to region. However, the steep APD restitution curve can either lead the spiral wave to break up and set up the ventricular fibrillation in certain conditions or result in no breakup of spiral wave in other conditions. The relationship between the dynamic behavior of spiral wave and steep APD restitution curve is still not completely clear. Therefore, further research is needed. In this paper, a two-dimensional excitable medium cellular automata model is used to study the influences of the APD restitution curves with different steepnesses on the dynamic behavior of spiral wave. Numerical simulation results show that the steep APD restitution curve can stabilize the meandering spiral wave, causing the stable spiral wave to roam or break, and even to disappear. When the total average slope of APD restitution curve is greater than 1, it is observed that spiral wave may be still stable or meandering. When the total average slope of APD restitution curve is much smaller than 1, the breakup of spiral waves may occur. Three types of spiral wave breakups are observed. They are the Doppler instability, Eckhaus instability, and APD alternation. The Doppler instability and Eckhaus instability are related to the total average slope of APD restitution curve greater than 1, and the spiral wave breakup caused by APD alternans may occur when the total average slope of APD restitution curve is much smaller than 1. When the total average slope of APD restitution curve is greater than 1, the phenomena that spiral waves disappear by meandering out of the system boundary and conduction barriers are observed. In addition, we also find that increasing cellular APD is beneficial to preventing spiral wave from breaking up. The physical mechanisms behind those phenomena are heuristically analyzed.

Control of spiral wave and spatiotemporal chaos in two-layer aging cardiac tissues

Cardiac arrhythmias can be caused by the occurrence of electrical spiral waves and spatiotemporal chaos in the cardiac tissues, as well as by the changes of cardiac tissues resulting from the electrical coupling of cardiomyocytes to fibroblasts (M-F coupling). How to control the arrhythmia induced by spiral wave or spatiotemporal chaos is the problem which has attracted much attention of scientists. In this paper, a two-layer composite medium is constructed by using cardiomyocytes and fibroblasts. Luo-Rudy phase I cardiac model and passive model of fibroblast are used to study the effects of the M-F coupling on the formation of spiral wave and the control of spiral wave and spatiotemporal chaos in a two-layer composite medium. A control scheme that the spiral waves and spatiotemporal chaos are controlled by increasing the coupling strength between cells is proposed. The numerical results show that the M-F coupling has an important influence on the dynamics of spiral wave. With the increase of the density of fibroblasts, the M-F coupling may result in spiral wave meandering and spiral wave breaking into spatiotemporal chaos, and even induce the transition from spatiotemporal chaos (or spiral wave) to no wave. The eliminating spiral wave and spatiotemporal chaos in the composite medium by increasing the coupling strength between cells is only effective in most of cases, depending on the role played by fibroblasts. When fibroblasts act as current sinks for the cardiomyocyte, the spiral wave and spatiotemporal chaos are effectively eliminated only in most of cases by increasing the coupling strength between cells, and the controlled area is small. When fibroblasts act as a current source for the cardiomyocyte, increasing the coupling strength between cells to a value higher than a critical value can effectively terminate spiral wave and spatiotemporal chaos, and the controllable area is greatly increased compared with the former. Increasing the coupling strength between cardiomyocytes is a key factor in controlling the spiral waves and spatiotemporal chaos.

Effects of randomization of characteristic times on spiral wave generation in a simple cellular automaton model of excitable media

Spiral waves are self-repeating waves that can form in excitable media, propagating outward from their center in a spiral pattern. Spiral waves have been observed in different natural phenomena and have been linked to medical conditions such as epilepsy and atrial fibrillation. We used a simple cellular automaton model to study propagation in excitable media, with a particular focus on understanding spiral wave behavior. The main ingredients of this cellular automaton model are an excitation condition and characteristic excitation and refractory periods. The literature shows that fixed excitation and refractory periods together with specific initial conditions generate stationary and stable spiral waves. In the present work, we allowed the activation and refractory periods to fluctuate uniformly over a range of values. Under these conditions, this very simplistic model can recreate the meandering and breakup of spiral waves that were observed in more elaborate models in the literature.

Numerical analysis of subcritical Hopf bifurcations in the two-dimensional FitzHugh-Nagumo model.

It had been shown that the transition from a rigidly rotating spiral wave to a meandering spiral wave is via a Hopf bifurcation. Many studies have shown that these bifurcations are supercritical, but, by using simulations in a comoving frame of reference, we present numerical results which show that subcritical bifurcations are also present within FitzHugh-Nagumo. We show that a hysteresis region is present at the boundary of the rigidly rotating spiral waves and the meandering spiral waves for a particular set of parameters, a feature of FitzHugh-Nagumo that has previously not been reported. Furthermore, we present a evidence that this bifurcation is highly sensitive to initial conditions, and it is possible to convert one solution in the hysteresis loop to the other.

Effect of Heart Structure on Ventricular Fibrillation in the Rabbit: A Simulation Study.

Ventricular fibrillation (VF) is a lethal condition that affects millions worldwide. The mechanism underlying VF is unstable reentrant electrical waves rotating around lines called filaments. These complex spatio-temporal patterns can be studied using both experimental and numerical methods. Computer simulations provide unique insights including high resolution dynamics throughout the heart and systematic control of quantities such as fiber orientation and cellular kinetics that are not feasible experimentally. Here we study filament dynamics using two bi-ventricular 3-D high-resolution rabbit heart geometries, one with detailed fine structure and another without fine structure. We studied filament dynamics using anisotropic and isotropic conductivities, and with four cellular action potential models with different recovery kinetics. Spiral wave dynamics observed in isotropic two-dimensional sheets were not predictive of the behavior in the whole heart. In 2-D the four cell models exhibited stable reentry, meandering spiral waves, and spiral-wave breakup. In the whole heart with fine structure, all simulation results exhibited complex dynamics reminiscent of fibrillation observed experimentally. In the whole heart without fine structure, anisotropy acted to destabilize filament dynamics although the number of filaments was reduced compared to the heart with structure. In addition, in isotropic hearts without structure the two cell models that exhibited meandering spiral waves in 2-D, stabilized into figure-of-eight surface patterns. We also studied the sensitivity of filament dynamics to computer system configuration and initial conditions. After large simulation times, different macroscopic results sometimes occurred across different system configurations, likely due to a lack of bitwise reproducibility. The study conclusions were insensitive to initial condition perturbations, however, the exact number of filaments over time and their trends were altered by these changes. In summary, we present the following new results. First, we provide a new cell model that resembles the surface patterns of VF in the rabbit heart both qualitatively and quantitatively. Second, filament dynamics in the whole heart cannot be predicted from spiral wave dynamics in 2-D and we identified anisotropy as one destabilizing factor. Third, the exact dynamics of filaments are sensitive to a variety of factors, so we suggest caution in their interpretation and their quantitative analyses.

Response function framework for the dynamics of meandering or large-core spiral waves and modulated traveling waves.

In many oscillatory or excitable systems, dynamical patterns emerge which are stationary or periodic in a moving frame of reference. Examples include traveling waves or spiral waves in chemical systems or cardiac tissue. We present a unified theoretical framework for the drift of such patterns under small external perturbations, in terms of overlap integrals between the perturbation and the adjoint critical eigenfunctions of the linearized operator (i.e., response functions). For spiral waves, the finite radius of the spiral tip trajectory and spiral wave meander are taken into account. Different coordinate systems can be chosen, depending on whether one wants to predict the motion of the spiral-wave tip, the time-averaged tip path, or the center of the meander flower. The framework is applied to analyze the drift of a meandering spiral wave in a constant external field in different regimes.

Competing Mechanisms of Stress-Assisted Diffusivity and Stretch-Activated Currents in Cardiac Electromechanics.

We numerically investigate the role of mechanical stress in modifying the conductivity properties of cardiac tissue, and also assess the impact of these effects in the solutions generated by computational models for cardiac electromechanics. We follow the recent theoretical framework from Cherubini et al. (2017), proposed in the context of general reaction-diffusion-mechanics systems emerging from multiphysics continuum mechanics and finite elasticity. In the present study, the adapted models are compared against preliminary experimental data of pig right ventricle fluorescence optical mapping. These data contribute to the characterization of the observed inhomogeneity and anisotropy properties that result from mechanical deformation. Our novel approach simultaneously incorporates two mechanisms for mechano-electric feedback (MEF): stretch-activated currents (SAC) and stress-assisted diffusion (SAD); and we also identify their influence into the nonlinear spatiotemporal dynamics. It is found that (i) only specific combinations of the two MEF effects allow proper conduction velocity measurement; (ii) expected heterogeneities and anisotropies are obtained via the novel stress-assisted diffusion mechanisms; (iii) spiral wave meandering and drifting is highly mediated by the applied mechanical loading. We provide an analysis of the intrinsic structure of the nonlinear coupling mechanisms using computational tests conducted with finite element methods. In particular, we compare static and dynamic deformation regimes in the onset of cardiac arrhythmias and address other potential biomedical applications.

Critical phase transitions during ablation of atrial fibrillation.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia with significant morbidity and mortality. Pharmacological agents are not very effective in the management of AF. Therefore, ablation procedures have become the mainstay of AF management. The irregular and seemingly chaotic atrial activity in AF is caused by one or more meandering spiral waves. Previously, we have shown the presence of sudden rhythm organization during ablation of persistent AF. We hypothesize that the observed transitions from a disorganized to an organized rhythm is a critical phase transition. Here, we explore this hypothesis by simulating ablation in an anatomically-correct 3D AF model. In 722 out of 2160 simulated ablation, at least one sudden transition from AF to an organized rhythm (flutter) was noted (33%). They were marked by a sudden decrease in the cycle length entropy and increase in the mean cycle length. At the same time, the number of reentrant wavelets decreased from 2.99 ± 0.06 in AF to 1.76 ± 0.05 during flutter, and the correlation length scale increased from 13.3 ± 1.0 mm to 196.5 ± 86.6 mm (both P < 0.0001). These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that transitions from AF to an anatomical flutter behave as phase transitions in complex non-equilibrium dynamical systems with flutter acting as an absorbing state. Clinically, the facilitation of phase transition should be considered a novel mechanism of ablation and may help to design effective ablation strategies.

Exploring the role of inhibitory coupling in duplex networks**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11565005 and 11365003).

The electrical coupling of myocytes and fibroblasts can play a role in inhibiting electrical impluse propagation in cardiac muscle. To understand the function of fibroblast–myocyte coupling in the aging heart, the spiral-wave dynamics in the duplex networks with inhibitory coupling is numerically investigated by the Bär–Eiswirth model. The numerical results show that the inhibitory coupling can change the wave amplitude, excited phase duration and excitability of the system. When the related parameters are properly chosen, the inhibitory coupling can induce local abnormal oscillation in the system and the Eckhaus instability of the spiral wave. For the dense inhibitory network, the maximal decrement (maximal increment) in the excited phase duration can reach 24.3%(13.4%), whereas the maximal decrement in wave amplitude approaches 28.1%. Upon increasing the inhibitory coupling strength, the system excitability is reduced and even completely suppressed when the interval between grid points in the inhibitory network is small enough. Moreover, the inhibitory coupling can lead to richer phase transition scenarios of the system, such as the transition from a stable spiral wave to turbulence and the transition from a meandering spiral wave to a planar wave. In addition, the self-sustaining planar wave, the unique meandering of spiral wave and inward spiral wave are observed. The physical mechanisms behind the phenomena are analyzed.

Dynamics of Meandering Spiral Waves with Weak Lattice Perturbations

Re-entrant spiral waves are observed in many different situations in nature, perhaps most importantly in excitable electrophysiological tissue where they are believed to be responsible for pathological conditions such as cardiac arrhythmias, epileptic seizures, and hallucinations. Mathematically, spiral waves occur as solutions to systems of reaction-diffusion partial differential equations (RDPDEs), which are frequently used as models for electrophysiological phenomena. Because of the invariance of these RDPDEs with respect to the Euclidean group $SE(2)$ of planar translations and rotations, much progress has been made in understanding the dynamics and bifurcations of spiral waves using the theory of group-equivariant dynamical systems. In reality, however, Euclidean symmetry is at best an approximation. Inhomogeneities and anisotropy in the medium of propagation of the waves break the Euclidean symmetry and can lead to such phenomena as anchoring and drifting. In this paper, we study the effects on quas...

Controlling spiral wave and spatiotemporal chaos in cardiac tissues by slowing sodium channel activation and inactivation

Much evidence shows that the appearance and instability of the spiral wave in cardiac tissue can be linked to a kind of heart disease. Therefore there needs a method of controlling spiral wave more safely and effectively. The intelligent modification of specific ion channel to achieve desired control is the future direction of gene therapy in heart disease. The key question that has to be answered is which ion channel is the best candidate for controlling spiral wave. Modern biological technology has been able to make the mutation of sodium channel gene to change its relaxation time constant. In this paper, we adopt the Luo-Rudy phase I model to investigate how to regulate the relaxation time constant of sodium channel gate to control spiral wave and spatiotemporal chaos in cardiac tissues. We suggest a control strategy which slows down the rate of sodium current activation and inactivation by increasing the relaxation time constant of the sodium activation gate by up to times while its fast inactivation gate is clamped to 0.77. Numerical simulation results show that a gradual increase of will cause the activation gate of sodium current to reach maximum more slowly, and its amplitude is gradually reduced, so that the amplitude and duration of the action potential of cardiomyocyte are gradually reduced. When the factor is large enough, the spiral wave and spatiotemporal chaos cannot propagate in the medium except planar wave with low frequency. The reason is that the excitabilities of medium and wave speed significantly decrease. Therefore, the spiral waves and spatiotemporal chaos can be effectively eliminated when the control time is properly selected and the factor is large enough. Spiral wave and spatiotemporal chaos disappear mainly due to conduction obstacle. In some cases, spiral wave can disappear through the transition from spiral wave to target wave or tip retraction. Spatiotemporal chaos disappears after spatiotemporal chaos has evolved into meandering spiral wave. When the parameters are chosen properly, the phenomenon that spiral wave evolves into a self-sustained target wave is also observed. The corresponding target wave source is the pair of spiral waves with opposite rotation directions. These results can provide useful information for gene therapy in heart disease.

Terminating the spiral wave and spatiotemporal chaos in cardiac tissue using the low-pass filtering scheme

To cause the sodium ion activation gate of cardiomyocyte delay to open, the ability of excitation delay should be given to the medium. The time of excitation delay of the medium increases as the control voltage and frequency of stimulation increase. When the control voltage exceeds a threshold value, the medium with excitation delay has the property of low-pass filtering: low-frequency waves can continuously pass through the medium, whereas the high-frequency wave does not pass consecutively. In this paper, the effect of excitation delay of the medium on spiral waves and spatiotemporal chaos is investigated by using Luo-Rudy phase I model. Numerical simulation results show that when the control voltage exceeds the threshold value, the excitation delay of the medium can effectively eliminate the spiral wave and spatiotemporal chaos. When the control voltage gradually increases from a small value, at a small maximal conductance of calcium channel, the excitation delay could reduce the excitability of the medium, making the amplitude of the spiral wave meander increase until conduction failure results in the disappearance of the spiral wave. Under a large maximal conductance of calcium channel, the excitation delay can reduce the unstability of the spiral wave so that spatiotemporal chaos evolve into meandering spiral waves when the control voltage is large enough. The phenomenon that the spiral wave with a large meandering motion of its tip moves out of the system is observed when the control voltage is properly chosen. Further increase of the control voltage leads to the disappearance of spatiotemporal chaos.

Dynamics of spiral waves in an asymmetrically coupled two-layer excitable medium

The dynamics of spiral waves in the two-layer excitable media is studied by using the Br-Eiswirth model. The two media adopts the inhibitory and excitatory asymmetric couplings. Numerical results show that the excitatory asymmetric coupling can promote the frequency-locking of two spiral waves with different frequencies. The two spiral waves can achieve frequency-locking even if the frequency difference between them is large. The coupling causes the two spiral waves to have the strongest ability of frequency-locking; when the coupling between the two media is the inhibitory asymmetric coupling, the two spiral waves can achieve frequency-locking only when the frequency difference of the initial spiral waves is small. Furthermore, the range of frequency-locking is smaller than that of the general feedback coupling, and the frequency-locking ability of spiral waves reaches the minimum level. When the coupling strength and control parameters are chosen appropriately, the inhibitory and excitatory asymmetric coupling can keep the spiral wave unchanged in one medium and result in the transition from spiral wave to the resting state or target wave with low-frequency in the other. The coupling also induces the meandering of spiral waves or leads to the transition from two spiral waves to two target waves in the two-layer media. Finally the generated target waves either disappear or develop into the plane-wave-like oscillation patterns. Furthermore, the oscillation of the patterns is in antiphase. In addition, the locally intermittent frequency-locking of the two spiral waves is observed. These results can help understand the complicated phenomena occurring in the cardiac system.

The effect of cellular aging on the dynamics of spiral waves

Cellular aging can result in deterioration of electrical coupling, the extension of the action potential duration, and lower excitability of the cell. Those factors are introduced into the Greenberg—Hastings cellular automaton model and the effects of the cellular aging on the dynamics of spiral waves are studied. The numerical results show that a 50% reduction of the coupling strength of aging cells has a little influence on spiral waves. If the coupling strength of aging cells equals zero, the ability for the medium to maintain spiral waves will be reduced by approximately 50% when the aging cell ratio increases from 0 to 0.5, where the reduction of cell excitability plays a major role in inducing disappearance of spiral waves. When the relevant parameters are properly chosen, the cellular aging can lead to the meandering of spiral waves, the emergence of the binary spiral waves, and even the disappearance of spiral waves via the stopping rotation or shrinkage of wave. Physical mechanisms of the above phenomena are analyzed briefly.

Study on the effect of delayed recovery of extracellular potassium ion concentration on spiral wave

Frequency-dependent changes in the extracellular potassium ion concentration have been added to the Luo-Rudy phase I heart model. Effects of the delayed restoration of extracellular potassium ion concentration on spiral waves are studied. Numerical simulation results show that due to the state of spiral wave, the delayed restoration of extracellular potassium ion concentration can lead to periodic oscillations of concentration, and the period and amplitude of the oscillation increase with the delayed recovery time, resulting in the emergence of various phenomena, such as the breathing spiral wave, the coexistence of multiple spiral waves, the meandering of spiral waves in the manner of Lévy flight, and the disappearance of spiral wave through different ways. These results are compatible with the experimental results.

Transformation of spiral wave to plan wave in the two layers of coupled excitable media

The dynamics of spiral waves in a two-layer coupled excitable medium is studied by using the Bär-Eiswirth model. The two layers of medium are connected via network, i.e., a excitable unit is selected in each column of an excitable medium as a central point, and all excitable units in the same column of a layer medium are connected only with the corresponding central point and its eight neighbors in the opposite medium. The numerical results show that when the coupling strength is appropriately small, the two coupled spiral waves via local coupling can achieve their synchronization. Increasing coupling strength will induce meandering and drifting of spiral waves, leading to a desynchrony between the coupled spiral waves. The spiral wave with the resting state, low frequency plan wave and irregular pattern are observed to coexist. The coupled spiral waves via the transformation of spiral wave to synchronous plane wave disappear if the coupling strength is appropriately chosen. The physical mechanisms behind these phenomena are discussed.

Meandering spiral waves in a bubble-free Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction with pyrogallol

A thin layer of the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction with pyrogallol (PG) supports meandering spiral waves with outward-petal trajectories. Increasing [PG] or lowering [H2SO4] leads to an enlargement of the outer diameter of the tip trajectory, as well as an increment of the number of petals. Far from the spiral tip, the wavelength and the wave period also increase. However, the wave speed decreases, when [PG] is elevated or [H2SO4] is reduced. This reaction is suitable for further investigations of three-dimensional spiral dynamics with optical tomography because of slowly propagating waves, no bubbles, no induction time, and no inhibitory effects of oxygen.