Visualizing the Heart

Contents:H1,H2

Cardiac Mapping and Heart Geometry

Epicaridal Surface

Ventricular surface. See the following three figures for detailed description.

Epicardial surface, anterior view

Ventricular surface represented by a triangulated mesh. Nodes of the mesh formed locations of electrodes mounted on a nylon sock, which was used to conduct cardiac potential recording. RV = right ventricle; LV = left ventricle; LAD = left anterior descending coronary artery; and RCA = right coronary artery.

Epicardial surface, anterolateral view

Epicardial surface, posterior view

Ventricular myocardium measured by intramural needle electrodes

Multi-electrode needle configuration. In this in situ experiment, electric potentials were measured from 56 plunge needles inserted in the free wall of the left ventricle. Each needle contained 12 electrodes separated by 1.6 mm between each other.

Excitation Wave Propagation in the Heart

Simulated excitation wave in 3D heart

Simulated excitation times in a slab of tissue. Stimulation was applied in the center of the myocardium, which has anisotropic tissue property. An idealized Purkinje network at the endocardium was activated at around 25 ms after the pacing.

Excitation wave on the epicardial surface during atrial pacing

Electric Potential Fields in the Heart

Electric potentials on the epicardial surface

Electrical potentials on the epicardial surface during a ventricular stimulation. Here potentials are drawn as a height field. The "fault" demonstrates the large potential gradients associated with the excitation wave in the space. The lower panel shows a sample electrogram at one of the electrode. The red bar indicates the time instance of the potential map.

Interpolation of electric potential on the epicardial surface

Comparison of linear and wave-equation based (WEB) interpolations of electric potentials on the epicardial surface. Upper row contains isopotential maps all derived from original recordings from 16X electrodes with 1.5 mm spacing (leftmost panel), interpolated results from a 4X sub-sampling grid (marked by large dots) using the WEB interpolation (center panel), and using standard linear interpolation (rightmost panel). The time instant selected was 13 ms after pacing, as marked by vertical line in the single time signal shown in the bottom left hand panel, which was located at the site marked by the red circle in the left hand map.

Movies

Click a link to view a movie. QuickTime is required to view these movies.

Three-dimensional myocardium

Excitation wave from an epicardial pacing

Excitation wave from an intramural pacing

Excitation wave from an endocardial pacing

Electric potentials in myocardium from an intramural pacing

A current dipole field

Movies appear here