Cardiac alternans annihilation by distributed mechano-electric feedback (MEF)

The presence of the electrical alternans induces, through the mechanism of the excitation-contraction coupling, an alternation in the heart muscle contractile activity. In this work, we demonstrate the cardiac alternans annihilation by applied mechanical perturbation. In particular, we address annihilation of alternans in realistic heart size tissue by considering ionic currents suggested by Luo-Rudy-1 (LR1) model, in which the control algorithm involves a combined electrical boundary pacing control and a spatially distributed calcium based control which perturbs the calcium in the cells. Complimentary to this, we also address a novel mechanism of alternans annihilation which uses a Nash Panfilov model coupled with the stress equilibrium equations. The coupled model includes an additional variable to represent the active stress which defines the mechanical properties of the tissue.