Interactions between cardiac fibrosis spatial pattern and ionic remodeling on electrical wave propagation

Cardiac fibrosis is an important form of pathological tissue remodeling. Fibrosis can electrically-uncouple neighboring excitable cardiomyocytes thus acting as an obstacle to electrical propagation. In this study, we investigated the effects of fibrosis spatial pattern on electrical propagation in control, decreased maximum sodium conductance, and increased intracellular resistivity conditions. Simulations were performed with a monodomain approach and a realistic canine ionic model. We found that the propagation failure is highly dependent on the spatial pattern of fibrosis for all conditions studied with maximum sensitivity for patterns with combination of small and large clusters. However, the effect is particularly sensitive to reduced sodium current condition where conduction block occurred at lower fibrosis density.