Drift of scroll waves in a generic axisymmetric model of the cardiac left ventricle

摘要

Many dangerous cardiac arrhythmias are driven by rotating spiral waves of electrical excitation. The dynamics of these rotating waves determine the properties of the arrhythmia. In this paper, we present a numerical study of the dynamics of scroll waves in generic axisymmetric models of the left ventricle, coupled with an ionic model for human cardiac cells. We find that the most frequent type of dynamic present is annihilation of the scroll waves at the basal boundary of the heart. However, in several cases, the scroll waves stabilised inside the myocardium and rotated around transmural filaments. This behaviour is affected by many parameters, including the thickness of the myocardial wall, the cardiac tissue anisotropy, that is the anisotropy ratio and the directions of the myofibres, the chirality of the scroll waves and the parameters of the cell model. There can be several attractors, and a scroll wave can persist or disappear depending on the initial conditions, for example, S1S2 protocol parameters. However, the exact dependencies are complex and not always monotonic. In this study, we discuss the possible mechanisms underlying these dynamics and the application of our results to cardiac arrhythmias. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.