Completed notes of the course

Pagina 1

Computational Biology of the Heart L A T E X notes Prof. Rodriguez Matas Jose Felix Giuseppe Lauricella Heart pathologies are the main cause of handicap or death. Having a lot of diagnostic tools is of crucial importance. The imaging techniques can be combined, incorporating patient speci c features. This will allow us to improve treatments, surgical intervention. Atrial ablation is one of the main treatments for atrial brillation. Pre-clinical planning can be improved, thus increasing the success rate. The mathematical problem of the electrical activity of the heart is multi-scale in nature (organ, muscle, cell, ionic channel). Each scale implies particular modeling characteristics. The ionic channels in cardiomyocytes are of crucial importance for the development of the action potential. In humans, we distinguish Na + , Ca + and K + . In order to reproduce the action potential(AP) we need to put together the dynamic of the exchange of ions. The AP will be de ned by a set of dierential equation. At the organ level, the bers orientation must be taken into account. Sudden death is often associated with muscle bers orientation: there is an electrophysiological heterogeneity (moving towards precision medicine . . . ). The heart is activated through the specialized conduction system, producing a synchronized contraction of the muscle heart. The next step will be to incorporate the model of the heart into a torso model (the heart must be considered surrounded by the lungs and other organs). The computational simulation in an intensive problem requiring speci c numerical implementations and high performance solutions. This tools gives the opportunity to do a further step towards in silico medicine and personalized medicine. Computer modeling of atrial signals is currently…