A Local Sensitivity Analysis Method for Developing Biological Models with Identifiable Parameters: Application to L-type Calcium Channel Modelling

Computational cardiac models provide important insights into the underlying mechanisms of heart function. Parameter estimation in these models is an ongoing challenge with many existing models being overparameterised. Sensitivity analysis presents a key tool for exploring the parameter identiflability. While existing methods provide insight into the significance of the parameters, they are unable to identify redundant parameters in an efficient manner. We present a new singular value decomposition based algorithm for determining parameter identifiability in cardiac models. Using this local sensitivity approach, we investigate the Mahajan 2008 rabbit ventricular myocyte L-type calcium current model. We identify non-significant and redundant parameters and improve the leal model by reducing it to a minimum one that is validated to have only identifiable parameters. The newly proposed approach provides a new method for model validation and evaluation of the predictive power of cardiac models.