Three-dimensional analysis of regional cardiac function: a model of rabbit ventricular anatomy

Abstract

The three-dimensional geometry and anisotropic properties of the heart give rise to nonhomogeneous distributions of stress, strain, electrical activation and repolarization. In this article we review the ventricular geometry and myofiber architecture of the heart, and the experimental and modeling studies of three-dimensional cardiac mechanics and electrophysiology. The development of a three-dimensional finite element model of the rabbit ventricular geometry and fiber architecture is described in detail. Finally, we review the experimental results, from the level of the cell to the intact organ, which motivate the development of coupled three-dimensional models of cardiac electromechanics and mechanoelectric feedback.

High Performance Computer Simulations of Cardiac Electrical Function Based on High Resolution MRI Datasets

“…The finite element meshes were generated specifically to conduct simulations of ventricular electrophysiological activity, using one of the most advanced bidomain cardiac simulators available to date, namely Cardiac Arrhythmias Research Package (CARP) 3 . CARP uses computational techniques to solve the cardiac bidomain equations [12] defined as:…”

“…Computer simulations have demonstrated the ability to provide insight into the role of cardiac anatomy and structure in cardiac electromechanical function in health and disease [1], [2]. The most advanced cardiac models to date incorporate realistic geometry and fibre orientation [3]. However, for each animal species, only one example of cardiac anatomy is generally used, which obscures the effect of natural variability.…”

The role of transmural ventricular heterogeneities in cardiac vulnerability to electric shocks

“…This study used a 3D geometrically accurate rabbit ventricular model (Vetter and McCulloch, 1998) that incorporated realistic fibre architecture and representation of the blood within the ventricular cavities and the perfusing bath (Trayanova et al, 2002). The finite element mesh consisted of 829 021 tetrahedral elements, with a spatial resolution of 500 μm.…”

“…This is achieved by investigating the mechanisms of cardiac vulnerability to electric shocks using an anatomically accurate three-dimensional (3D) rabbit ventricular model (Vetter and McCulloch, 1998;Trayanova et al, 2002), which for the first time incorporates transmural heterogeneities in electrophysiological properties and gap-junctional coupling.…”

Computers and arrhythmiascomputational approaches to understanding cardiac electrical dynamics

“…In certain circumstances, intermediate phenomenological models [4,5] may be used instead of detailed ionic models that track several ionic species and 10-15 different ionic currents. Detailed digital models of cardiac anatomy have been obtained from dissected animal hearts [6,7] and scanned images [8]. Moreover, a good understanding of the roles of some spatial scales and spatio-temporal dynamics [5,[9][10][11][12] in the behavior of individual cells and cardiac tissue has been developed.…”