Effect of myocardial infarction and ischemia on induction of cardiac reentries and ventricular fibrillation

Acta Biotheoretica 43 (4):363-372 (1995)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The present work is aimed at investigating the effects of myocardial infarction and ischemia on induction of ventricular fibrillation. Electrophysiologic effects of global and local ischemia (variation of the dispersion of refractory periods as well as conduction velocity) on initiation of reentry mechanisms was studied by means of computer simulations based on a cellular automata model of propagation of activation wave through a ventricular surface element. A local area of ischemia where effects of the dispersion of refractory periods are investigated is then simulated. This is made using a Gaussian distribution characterized by its mean and standard deviation. These simulations show that ischemia is capable of initiating reentry phenomena which propagate through the whole ventricle; they are responsible for ventricular fibrillation which causes sudden cardiac death, even when ischemia only involves limited parts of the myocardium. Statistical study of the probability of reentries as a function of both of the size of ischemic zones and the rate of dispersion of refractory periods shows that the latter parameter is of primary importance in triggering cardiac reentries

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Informed consent in acute myocardial infarction research.Anne Gammelgaard - 2004 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 29 (4):417 – 434.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
39 (#354,726)

6 months
3 (#439,386)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references