Dynamical instability of cardiac action potentials: cause and effect

摘要

An eigenmode method is used to develop insight into the mechanism behind alternans, memory, and conserved and nearly-conserved quantities in small cardiac preparations undergoing constant pacing. The time course of the right eigenmodes of perturbations about the steady state determine the process by which alternans and memory are produced. The left eigenvalues define the conservation and near-conservation laws. Matrix "cleaning" techniques further clarify the stability of action potentials during constant pacing.