Development of Epicardial Mapping System for Studying Atrial Fibrillation

Epicardial mapping system is an important tool for studying electrophysiological characteristics of atrial fibrillation (AF). AF is the most common arrhythmia and is becoming more prevalent each year. Most in vivo experimental research on AF is performed by simultaneous epicardial mapping technique. An epicardial mapping system is developed to record electrical activities from 128 sites at the same time, with a spacing of 3.5-5.0 mm. The initial purpose of this research is to display the electrical signals on the whole-atrial epicardial surface and store these data for subsequent analysis. 128 unipolar electrodes arranged in eight flexible patches were adopted to detect signal on the surface of whole atrium. Each electrode patch was designed to adaptable to the corresponding epicardial surface of canine atrium. The system contained an amplifier with 128 isolated channels and a data acquisition card based on USB communication. Random acquisition duration of interested data during sinus or AF rhythm could be recorded. Animal tests were operated on four mongrel dogs, in which two were models of chronic AF. Result shows that this system can perform successfully in a surgical setting. This system may be a special and portable tool for whole-atrium epicardial mapping and therefore useful for studying AF.