title: Influence of nonexcitable cells on spiral breakup in two-dimensional and three-dimensional excitable media.
abstract: We study spiral wave dynamics in the presence of nonexcitable cells in two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) excitable media, described by the Aliev-Panfilov model. We find that increasing the percentage of randomly distributed nonexcitable cells can prevent the breaking up of a spiral wave into a complex spatiotemporal pattern. We show that this effect is more pronounced in 2D than 3D excitable media. We explain the observed 2D vs 3D differences by a different dependence of the period and diastolic interval of the spiral wave on the percentage of nonexcitable cells in 2D and 3D excitable media.
authors.affiliation: Department of Theoretical Biology, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, Utrecht 3584 CH, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: K H W J
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: ten Tusscher
authors.forename: A V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Panfilov
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001145:Arrhythmias, Cardiac; D055592:Biophysical Phenomena; D001703:Biophysics; D003971:Diastole; D005355:Fibrosis; D006801:Humans; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009206:Myocardium / Q000473:pathology; D013997:Time Factors; D014693:Ventricular Fibrillation