Xu, L; (2014) Investigation of Electrophysiological Interactions in the Human Heart. Masters thesis , UCL (University College London).

Preview

PDF Xei_Lu_final_MPhil_Thesis.pdf Download (3MB)

Abstract

Ventricular fibrillation (VF) is the leading heart rhythm for causing sudden death worldwide, claiming 70,000 deaths per year in the UK alone. Understanding the mechanism for initiating fibrillation is crucial in progressing future therapies and risk stratification for implantable cardioverter-defibrillator therapy. Experimental studies and computerized simulations of cardiac activity have significantly contributed to the understanding of cardiac electrophysiology. Although these studies have been very successful at bridging the gap between basic research findings and understanding of arrhythmia, few studies have been made on the construction of an accurate simulation based on patient-acquired data. There remain some distances between computational modeling and clinical appreciation of arrhythmia generation. The primary objective of this project was to develop new numerical procedures to carry out simulation studies based on patient-acquired data referring to the existing computational models. To achieve this objective, the research was divided into three parts: the first part is to create models for electrical restitution of cardiac tissue and conduction model of activation signal, which can be fitted with experimental data to obtain electrical restitution properties; the second approach is to validate the computational models on extra-stimuli demonstrating that accurate prediction can be made on complex interactions of the time dynamics of sequential premature beats; the last part is to carry out simulation studies focusing on initiation of functional block based on patient-specific computational models. The main contribution of this work is that it provided a platform by which patient-specific experimental data can be incorporated into computerized simulation studies and served as a method by which the gap between fundamental cardiac simulation and clinical science can be bridged.

Download activity - last month

Export as JSONXMLCSV

Download activity - last 12 months

Export as JSONXMLCSV

Downloads by country - last 12 months

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Archive Staff Only

View Item