University of Notre Dame/Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Biocomplexity/Center News

Sasha Panfilov
Department of Theoretical Biology
Utrecht University

Modelling in Electrophysiology Using Anatomically Accurate Models of the Heart

Modeling in cardiology gives an exciting example of application of methods of applied and computational physics to medicine and biology. One of the most important applications of such modelling is understanding the mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death, accounting for about 1 death in 10 in industrialized countries. In my talk I will review the basic regimes of abnormal wave propagation in cardiac tissue leading to the arrhythmias. Then, I

will talk about one of the most promising recent approaches in cardiac modelling: development of anatomically accurate models of the heart and will present in details our model of human ventricles which features accurate geometry (with a 0.2 mm resolution) and anisotropic intramural fibrous structure. Dynamics of cardiac cells is described using an ionic 16 variable ODE model. I will show our recent results on modelling of different cardiac arrhythmias and on 3D organization of ventricular fibrillation in human heart and discuss possible future developments in this area.


	Sasha Panfilov Department of Theoretical Biology Utrecht University Modelling in Electrophysiology Using Anatomically Accurate Models of the Heart Modeling in cardiology gives an exciting example of application of methods of applied and computational physics to medicine and biology. One of the most important applications of such modelling is understanding the mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death, accounting for about 1 death in 10 in industrialized countries. In my talk I will review the basic regimes of abnormal wave propagation in cardiac tissue leading to the arrhythmias. Then, I will talk about one of the most promising recent approaches in cardiac modelling: development of anatomically accurate models of the heart and will present in details our model of human ventricles which features accurate geometry (with a 0.2 mm resolution) and anisotropic intramural fibrous structure. Dynamics of cardiac cells is described using an ionic 16 variable ODE model. I will show our recent results on modelling of different cardiac arrhythmias and on 3D organization of ventricular fibrillation in human heart and discuss possible future developments in this area.

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