Computer simulation of electrical propagation in cardiac tissue

The purpose of the present research is to analyze the behavior of the reentrant spiral wave, which is one of the main causes of sudden cardiac death using computer simulation models of cardiac excitation propagation. The simulation model is a two dimensional electric circuit network model where many electric circuit models of cardiac membrane action potential were connected with electric resistance standing for intra- and extra-cellular conductance. As cardiac membrane action potential model, we used BeeleReuter (DR) model and. LuoRudy (L-R) model. In order to investigate the effect of ionic current modification by antiarrhythmic drugs on the reentrant pattern, we controlled the sodium current, I_Na, and the potassium current, I_K, of the cardiac action potential models and investigated the obtained reentrant patterns. In order to validate the simulation results, we are comparing the reentry pattern under dose of anti-arrhythmic drugs observed by a high-resolution optical mapping system.