Electrical turbulence in three-dimensional heart muscle.
Rotors or vortex action potentials with a diameter of about 1 centimeter and a rotation period of about 0.1 second occur in normal myocardium just before transition to fibrillation, a disorderly pattern of action potential propagation. Numerical models and corresponding mathematical analysis have recently suggested candidate mechanisms, all two-dimensional, for this transition from periodic electrical activity to something resembling turbulence. However, comparably recent experiments unanimously show that rotors, and the spiral waves they radiate, remain stably periodic in two-dimensional myocardium. This seeming paradox suggests a transition mediated through disorderly dynamics of the electrical vortex in three dimensions, as a "vortex filament."
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson 85721.
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Winfree
D000200:Action Potentials; D000818:Animals; D016275:Atrial Function; D006321:Heart / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008433:Mathematics; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D014693:Ventricular Fibrillation / Q000503:physiopathology*; D016276:Ventricular Function