title: Quasiperiodicity and chaos in cardiac fibrillation.
abstract: In cardiac fibrillation, disorganized waves of electrical activity meander through the heart, and coherent contractile function is lost. We studied fibrillation in three stationary forms: in human chronic atrial fibrillation, in a stabilized form of canine ventricular fibrillation, and in fibrillation-like activity in thin sheets of canine and human ventricular tissue in vitro. We also created a computer model of fibrillation. In all four studies, evidence indicated that fibrillation arose through a quasiperiodic stage of period and amplitude modulation, thus exemplifying the "quasiperiodic transition to chaos" first suggested by Ruelle and Takens. This suggests that fibrillation is a form of spatio-temporal chaos, a finding that implies new therapeutic approaches.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine (Cardiology), University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine, 90095, USA. alang@lifesci.ucla.edu
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Garfinkel
authors.forename: P S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: D O
authors.initials: DO
authors.lastname: Walter
authors.forename: H S
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Karagueuzian
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kogan
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Evans
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Karpoukhin
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hwang
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Uchida
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gotoh
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Nwasokwa
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sager
authors.forename: J N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Weiss
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials; D000818:Animals; D001145:Arrhythmias, Cardiac / Q000209:etiology*; D001281:Atrial Fibrillation / Q000209:etiology; D003198:Computer Simulation; D018450:Disease Progression; D004285:Dogs; D006801:Humans; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D008954:Models, Biological; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D010507:Periodicity; D013610:Tachycardia; D014693:Ventricular Fibrillation / Q000209:etiology