title: Chaos in the genesis and maintenance of cardiac arrhythmias.
abstract: Dynamical chaos, an irregular behavior of deterministic systems, has been widely shown in nature. It also has been demonstrated in cardiac myocytes in many studies, including rapid pacing-induced irregular beat-to-beat action potential alterations and slow pacing-induced irregular early afterdepolarizations, etc. Here we review the roles of chaos in the genesis of cardiac arrhythmias, the transition to ventricular fibrillation, and the spontaneous termination of fibrillation, based on evidence from computer simulation of mathematical models and experiments of animal models.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine (Cardiology), David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, 650 Charles E. Young Drive South, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA. zqu@mednet.ucla.edu
authors.forename: Zhilin
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Qu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001145:Arrhythmias, Cardiac / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D013997:Time Factors; D014693:Ventricular Fibrillation / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology