title: A finite element approach for modeling micro-structural discontinuities in the heart.
abstract: The presence of connective tissue as well as interstitial clefts forms a natural barrier to the electrical propagation in the heart. At a microscopic scale, such uncoupling structures change the pattern of the electrical conduction from uniform towards complex and may play a role in the genesis of cardiac arrhythmias. The anatomical diversity of conduction structures and their topology at a microscopic size scale is overwhelming for experimental techniques. Mathematical models have been often employed to study the behavior of the electrical propagation at a sub-cellular level. However, very fine and computationally expensive meshes are required to capture all microscopic details found in the cardiac tissue. In this work, we present a numerical technique based on the finite element method which allows to reproduce the effects of microscopic conduction barriers caused by the presence of uncoupling structures without actually resolving these structures in a high resolution mesh, thereby reducing the computational costs significantly.
authors.affiliation: Graduate Program on Computational Modeling, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Campus Universit´ario, 36036-330 Juiz de Fora, MG, Brazil.
authors.forename: Caroline Mendonca Costa
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Costa
authors.forename: Fernando O
authors.initials: FO
authors.lastname: Campos
authors.forename: Anton J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Prassl
authors.forename: Rodrigo Weber
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: dos Santos
authors.forename: Damián
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sánchez-Quintana
authors.forename: Ernst
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hofer
authors.forename: Gernot
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Plank
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D003198:Computer Simulation; D020342:Finite Element Analysis; D006329:Heart Conduction System / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008953:Models, Anatomic; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D032383:Myocytes, Cardiac / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology*