A biophysical model of ECG signals during atrial fibrillation used to evaluate the performance of QRST cancellation algorithms

Characterization of electrical signals during atrial fibrillation (AF) is facilitated when the ventricular electrical activity (QRST complexes) has been suppressed. However, evaluating the performance of the QRST cancellation requires knowing the atrial activity during the QRST complex. A biophysically based model of the ECG during AF was developed, in which the exact separate contributions of the atria and the ventricles is available. Abnormal electrical propagation was simulated in a 3-D model of the human atria. The atrial electrical activity on the thorax was obtained by applying the boundary element method to a compartmental torso model. The ventricular activity was incorporated as a sequence of QRST complexes extracted from the clinical ECG of a patient in sinus rhythm. The ECG obtained as the sum of the atrial and ventricular activity described above may be used as a benchmark for testing and evaluating QRST cancellation and feature extraction techniques