Spiral Waves In Cardiac Tissue Research Articles

Tracing the elimination of reentry spiral waves in defibrillation: Temperature effects

The presence of spiral waves in cardiac tissue causes ventricular fibrillation (VF). Clinical studies have demonstrated that reducing the blood temperature to hypothermia can improve the success rate of electrical defibrillation when VF occurs. In this paper, the Hodgkin-Huxley-style model is used to simulate the effects of temperature and electric shock on the spiral waves present in mammalian tissues, and the phase singularity (PS) identification methods are used to track the wave behaviors in network, finally the Luo-Rudy model is used to test the applicability of our results for cardiac tissues. The results show that temperature modulates the optimal parameters for defibrillation: (1) Arnold's tongue structure shows that an alternating electric field close to the tissue natural frequency (e.g.: cardiac sinus rhythm) allows the nodes to be phase-locked or PS directionally drift at a smaller intensity, thus eliminating spiral waves more effectively than a constant electric field. (2) The average node frequency increases with temperature whether the network is synchronized or present spiral waves, and the statistics show that the robustness of electric defibrillation can be enhanced when the tissue is at moderate hypothermia. (3) More interestingly, we define the defibrillation score (DFS) and find that moderate hypothermia is a balance to improves defibrillation success, which may provide some insights for practical defibrillation studies.

Spiral wave drift under optical feedback in cardiac tissue.

Spiral waves occur in various types of excitable media and their dynamics determine the spatial excitation patterns. An important type of spiral wave dynamics is drift, as it can control the position of a spiral wave or eliminate a spiral wave by forcing it to the boundary. In theoretical and experimental studies of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, it was shown that the most direct way to induce the controlled drift of spiral waves is by application of an external electric field. Mathematically such drift occurs due to the onset of additional gradient terms in the Laplacian operator describing excitable media. However, this approach does not work for cardiac excitable tissue, where an external electric field does not result in gradient terms. In this paper, we propose a method of how to induce a directed linear drift of spiral waves in cardiac tissue, which can be realized as an optical feedback control in tissue where photosensitive ion channels are expressed. We illustrate our method by using the FitzHugh-Nagumo model for cardiac tissue and the generic model of photosensitive ion channels. We show that our method works for continuous and discrete light sources and can effectively move spiral waves in cardiac tissue, or eliminate them by collisions with the boundary or with another spiral wave. We finally implement our method by using a biophysically motivated photosensitive ion channel model included to the Luo-Rudy model for cardiac cells and show that the proposed feedback control also induces directed linear drift of spiral waves in a wide range of light intensities.

Control of spiral waves in optogenetically modified cardiac tissue by periodic optical stimulation

Resonant drift of nonlinear spiral waves occurs in various types of excitable media under periodic stimulation. Recently a novel methodology of optogenetics has emerged, which allows to affect excitability of cardiac cells and tissues by optical stimuli. In this paper we study if resonant drift of spiral waves in the heart can be induced by a homogeneous weak periodic optical stimulation of cardiac tissue. We use a two-variable and a detailed model of cardiac tissue and add description of depolarizing and hyperpolarizing optogenetic ionic currents. We show that weak periodic optical stimulation at a frequency equal to the natural rotation frequency of the spiral wave induces resonant drift for both depolarizing and hyperpolarizing optogenetic currents. We quantify these effects and study how the speed of the drift and its direction depend on the initial conditions. We also derive analytical formulas based on the response function theory which correctly predict the drift velocity and its trajectory. We conclude that optogenetic methodology can be used for control of spiral waves in cardiac tissue and discuss its possible applications.

Dynamic behaviors of spiral waves in cardiac tissue under electromagnetic radiation

A new modified Fitzhugh–Nagumo model is proposed to study the dynamic behaviors of spiral waves in cardiac tissue under fixed or periodic electromagnetic radiation. The effects of fixed electromagnetic radiation and the amplitude and frequency of periodic electromagnetic radiation on the pattern transitions of the spiral waves are investigated, respectively. Our numerical results show that although spiral waves can normally propagate with slight deformation under weaker fixed or periodic electromagnetic radiation, stronger fixed or periodic electromagnetic radiation can terminate the spiral waves, cause the drift of the spirals and turbulence, and magnetize the spiral waves to the homogeneous state. Extensive comparative analysis results confirm that fixed electromagnetic radiation is more helpful to modify and magnetize the spiral waves to the homogeneous state, but the spiral waves more easily change to the chaotic state under periodic electromagnetic radiation. The simulation results also show that both increasing the amplitude and decreasing the frequency can block the rotating spiral waves and cause turbulence, but our considerable numerical results find that lower frequency more easily develops spatiotemporal chaos from the media.

Elimination of spiral waves in excitable media by magnetic induction

The formation of spiral waves in excitable media is a fascinating example of the beauty of nonlinear dynamics in spatiotemporal systems. Apart from the beauty of the patterns, the subject also has many practical application. For example, the emergence of spiral waves in cardiac tissue can lead to arrhythmias. Cortical spiral waves are also involved in epileptic seizures. Motivated by this, we here study the effects of magnetic induction on the formation of spiral waves in excitable media. An external sinusoidal magnetic induction with different amplitudes and angular frequencies is applied in order to study whether spiral waves could be eliminated. We use a network of coupled neurons as a model for the excitable medium. The four-variable magnetic Hindmarsh–Rose model is used for the local dynamics of each isolated neuron. The distribution of the cell membrane potential over time, affected by magnetic induction, is determined and the results are depicted as snapshots of the 2D network. Our research reveals that the continuance of rotating spiral seeds is impaired by high-amplitude magnetic induction. Moreover, we show that low-frequency induction is not capable of breaking the reorganizing rhythm of the spiral seeds, while much higher frequencies can be too fast to overcome this special rhythm.

The dynamics of spiral tip adjacent to inhomogeneity in cardiac tissue

Rotating spiral waves in cardiac tissue are implicated in life threatening cardiac arrhythmias. Experimental and theoretical evidences suggest the inhomogeneities in cardiac tissue play a significant role in the dynamics of spiral waves. Based on a modified 2D cardiac tissue model, the interaction of inhomogeneity on the nearby rigidly rotating spiral wave is numerically studied. The adjacent area of the inhomogeneity is divided to two areas, when the initial rotating center of the spiral tip is located in the two areas, the spiral tip will be attracted and anchor on the inhomogeneity finally, or be repulsed away. The width of the area is significantly dependent on the intensity and size of the inhomogeneity. Our numerical study sheds some light on the mechanism of the interaction of inhomogeneity on the spiral wave in cardiac tissue.

Impact of Bounded Noise and Rewiring on the Formation and Instability of Spiral Waves in a Small-World Network of Hodgkin-Huxley Neurons.

Spiral waves are observed in the chemical, physical and biological systems, and the emergence of spiral waves in cardiac tissue is linked to some diseases such as heart ventricular fibrillation and epilepsy; thus it has importance in theoretical studies and potential medical applications. Noise is inevitable in neuronal systems and can change the electrical activities of neuron in different ways. Many previous theoretical studies about the impacts of noise on spiral waves focus an unbounded Gaussian noise and even colored noise. In this paper, the impacts of bounded noise and rewiring of network on the formation and instability of spiral waves are discussed in small-world (SW) network of Hodgkin-Huxley (HH) neurons through numerical simulations, and possible statistical analysis will be carried out. Firstly, we present SW network of HH neurons subjected to bounded noise. Then, it is numerically demonstrated that bounded noise with proper intensity σ, amplitude A, or frequency f can facilitate the formation of spiral waves when rewiring probability p is below certain thresholds. In other words, bounded noise-induced resonant behavior can occur in the SW network of neurons. In addition, rewiring probability p always impairs spiral waves, while spiral waves are confirmed to be robust for small p, thus shortcut-induced phase transition of spiral wave with the increase of p is induced. Furthermore, statistical factors of synchronization are calculated to discern the phase transition of spatial pattern, and it is confirmed that larger factor of synchronization is approached with increasing of rewiring probability p, and the stability of spiral wave is destroyed.

Scanning and resetting the phase of a pinned spiral wave using periodic far field pulses

Spiral waves in cardiac tissue can pin to tissue heterogeneities and form stable pinned waves. These waves can be unpinned by electric stimuli applied close to the pinning center during the vulnerable window of the spiral. Using a phase transition curve (PTC), we quantify the response of a pinned wave in a cardiac monolayer to secondary excitations generated electric field pulses. The PTC can be used to construct a one-dimensional map that faithfully predicts the pinned wave’s response to periodic field stimuli. Based on this 1D map, we predict that pacing at a frequency greater than the spiral frequency, over drive pacing, leads to phase locking of the spiral to the stimulus, which hinders unpinning. In contrast, under drive pacing can lead to scanning of the phase window of the spiral, which facilitates unpinning. The predicted mechanisms of phase scanning and phase locking are experimentally tested and confirmed in the same monolayers that were used to obtain the PTC. Our results have the potential to help choose optimal parameters for low energy antifibrillation pacing schemes.

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.

Suppression of the spiral wave in cardiac tissue by using forcing currents with diversity

Forcing currents are generated by using two types of constant currents to stimulate different areas of a medium. The external current is mapped into transmembrane current and stable gradient force is induced to drive the stable rotating spiral wave. The medium becomes homogeneous when the spiral wave is removed and the time series of sampled membrane potentials becomes stable value without considering noise. The scheme is confirmed to be effective in the presence of Gaussian white noise.

A hybrid stimulation strategy for suppression of spiral waves in cardiac tissue

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia whose mechanisms are thought to be mainly due to the self perpetuation of spiral waves (SW). To date, available treatment strategies (antiarrhythmic drugs, radiofrequency ablation of the substrate, electrical cardioversion) to restore and to maintain a normal sinus rhythm have limitations and are associated with AF recurrences. The aim of this study was to assess a way of suppressing SW by applying multifocal electrical stimulations in a simulated cardiac tissue using a 2D FitzHugh–Nagumo model specially convenient for AF investigations. We identified stimulation parameters for successful termination of SW. However, SW reinduction, following the electrical stimuli, leads us to develop a hybrid strategy based on sodium channel modification for the simulated tissue.

Atrial and ventricular fibrillation: computational simulation of spiral waves in cardiac tissue

This manuscript proposes a novel, efficient finite element solution technique for the computational simulation of cardiac electrophysiology. We apply a two-parameter model that is characterized through a fast action potential and a slow recovery variable. The former is introduced globally as a nodal degree of freedom, whereas the latter is treated locally as internal variable on the integration point level. This particular discretization is extremely efficient and highly modular since different cardiac cell models can be incorporated straightforwardly through only minor local modifications on the integration point level. In this manuscript, we illustrate the algorithm in terms of the Aliev–Panfilov model for cardiomyocytes. To ensure unconditional stability, a backward Euler scheme is applied to discretize the evolution equation for both the action potential and the recovery variable in time. To increase robustness and guarantee optimal quadratic convergence, we suggest an incremental iterative Newton–Raphson scheme and illustrate the consistent linearization of the weak form of the excitation problem. The proposed algorithm is illustrated by means of two- and three-dimensional examples of re-entrant spiral and scroll waves characteristic of cardiac arrhythmias in atrial and ventricular fibrillation.

Line-defect patterns of unstable spiral waves in cardiac tissue

Spiral wave propagation in period-2 excitable media is accompanied by line defects, the locus of points with period-1 oscillations. Here we investigate spiral line defects in cardiac tissue where period-2 behavior has a known arrhythmogenic role. We find that the number of line defects, which is constrained to be an odd integer, is 3 for a freely rotating spiral, with and without meander, but 1 for a spiral anchored around a fixed heterogeneity. We interpret this finding analytically using a simple theory where spiral wave unstable modes with different numbers of line defects correspond to quantized solutions of a Helmholtz equation. Furthermore, the slow inward rotation of spiral line defects is described in different regimes.

The instability of the spiral wave induced by the deformation of elastic excitable media

There are some similarities between the spiral wave in excitable media and in cardiac tissue. Much evidence shows that the appearance and instability of the spiral wave in cardiac tissue can be linked to one kind of heart disease. There are many models that can be used to investigate the formation and instability of the spiral wave. Cardiac tissue is excitable and elastic, and it is interesting to simulate the transition and instability of the spiral wave induced by media deformation. For simplicity, a class of the modified Fitzhugh–Nagumo (MFHN) model, which can generate a stable rotating spiral wave, meandering spiral wave and turbulence within appropriate parameter regions, will be used to simulate the instability of the spiral wave induced by the periodical deformation of media. In the two-dimensional case, the total acreage of elastic media is supposed to be invariable in the presence of deformation, and the problem is described with Lx × Ly = N × ΔxN × Δy = L′xL′y = N × Δx′N × Δy′. In our studies, elastic media are decentralized into N × N sites and the space of the adjacent sites is changed to simulate the deformation of elastic media. Based on the nonlinear dynamics theory, the deformation effect on media is simplified and simulated by perturbing the diffusion coefficients Dx and Dy with different periodical signals, but the perturbed diffusion coefficients are compensatory. The snapshots of our numerical results find that the spiral wave can coexist with the spiral turbulence, instability of the spiral wave and weak deformation of the spiral wave in different conditions. The ratio parameter ε and the frequency of deformation forcing play a deterministic role in inducing instability of the spiral wave. Extensive studies confirm that the instability of the spiral wave can be induced and developed only if an appropriate frequency for deformation is used. We analyze the power spectrum for the time series of the mean activator of four sampled sites which are selected symmetrically in different cases, such as the condition that the spiral wave coexists with the spiral turbulence, spiral wave without evident deformation, complete instability of the spiral wave (turbulence) and weak deformation of the spiral wave. It is found that more new peaks appear in the power spectrum and the distribution of frequency becomes sparser when the spiral wave encounters instability.

Elimination of Spiral Waves and Competition between TravellingWave Impulses and Spiral Waves

The interaction between travelling wave impulses and spiral wavesis studied and the results of their competition are related to theexciting period. From the results, it is known that the formation anddevelopment of spiral waves in cardiac tissue depend on the period bywhich the travelling wave impulses are excited. A method is proposed toeliminate spiral waves, which is easily operated.

Elimination of spiral waves in cardiac tissue by multiple electrical shocks.

We study numerically the elimination of a spiral wave in cardiac tissue by application of multiple shocks of external current. To account for the effect of shocks we apply a recently developed theory for the interaction of the external current with cardiac tissue. We compare two possible feedback algorithms for timing of the shocks: a "local" feedback algorithm 11 (using an external electrode placed directly on the tissue) and a "global" feedback algorithm 22 (using the electrocardiogram). Our main results are: application of the external current causes a parametric resonant drift similar to that reported in previous model computations; the ratio of the threshold of elimination of the spiral wave by multiple shocks to the threshold of conventional single shock defibrillation in our model for cardiac tissue is about 0.5, while earlier, less realistic models predicted the value about 0.2; we show that an important factor for successful defibrillation is the location of the feedback electrode and the best results are achieved if the feedback electrode or the ECG lead is located at the boundary (or edge) of the cardiac tissue; the "local" and the "global" feedback algorithms show similar efficiency.

Frequency locking of meandering spiral waves in cardiac tissue

Frequency locking of meandering spiral waves in cardiac tissue