Defibrillation via the Elimination of Spiral Turbulence in a Model for Ventricular Fibrillation

Sinha, Sitabhra and Pande, Ashwin and Pandit, Rahul (2001) Defibrillation via the Elimination of Spiral Turbulence in a Model for Ventricular Fibrillation. In: Physical Review Letters, 86 (16). pp. 3678-81.

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Abstract

Ventricular fibrillation, the major reason behind sudden cardiac death, is turbulent cardiac electrical activity in which rapid, irregular disturbances in the spatiotemporal electrical activation of the heart make it incapable of any concerted pumping action. Methods of controlling ventricular fibrillation include electrical defibrillation as well as injected medication. Electrical defibrillation, though widely used, involves subjecting the whole heart to massive, and often counterproductive, electrical shocks. We propose a defibrillation method that uses a very low-amplitude shock (of order mV) applied for a brief duration (of order 100 ms) and over a coarse mesh of lines on our model ventricle.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Physical Review Letters
Publisher:	American Physical Society (APS)
Additional Information:	Copyright for this article belongs to American Physical Society (APS).
Keywords:	Spiral Turbulence;Ventricular fibrillation;Spatiotemporal
Department/Centre:	Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Physics
Date Deposited:	10 Dec 2004
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 04:12
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/259

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