A study of propagation patterns in ischemic myocardium using computer simulations

As a preliminary step toward developing a structurally based computational model to study reentrant excitation around a fixed obstacle in uniform anisotropic ventricular myocardium, the authors assembled five different models of ischemic tissue. The authors´ models were two dimensional sheets of excitable cells with a central region of markedly reduced cell-to-cell coupling. In some simulations, the models included an explicit characterization of interstitial current flow paths with a bidomain representation of tissue structure. In other simulations the authors included a border zone with cell-to-cell coupling intermediate between that used for healthy and ischemic model regions. The authors´ model results indicate propagation patterns were primarily affected by the choice of cell-to-cell coupling values for the intracellular volume conductor