Spatio-temporal wavefront isolation an approach to quantify fibrillation complexity

Quantification of the complexity of fibrillatory processes may objectify the modifications induced by a therapy. However, its evaluation is usually restricted to a subjective visual inspection. The objective of this work is to classify isochronal maps attending to their organization into 3 types. An automatic classification method based on spatio-temporal isolation of activation wavefronts is presented. The method was tested on ventricular fibrillation recordings from 17 Langerdorff-perfused rabbit hearts using a 121 multielectrode with (N=9) and without (N=8) perfusion with propranolol. With the proposed method, changes in complexity caused by propranolol caused an increase in type I activations (21.2 vs. 49.9) and a decrease in type II (62.5 vs. 39.4) and type III (16.3 vs. 10.7), p <; 0.001. The proposed method appears as a valuable tool for determining the complexity of multichannel recordings obtained during fibrillation in a fast, automatic and reproducible way.