Analyzing the transmural electromechanical heterogeneity of the left ventricle in a computer model

Abstract

There is a large number of published studies analyzing the inhomogeneously distributed electrophysiological properties of the ventricles in a computer model. However only few of them deal with the impact on the heart?s mechanics. In 2003 Cordeiro and colleagues [1] analyzed the influence of the transmural left ventricular electrophysiological heterogeneity on the myocardial mechanics. Therefore, they examined the unloaded cell shortening of sub-epicardial cells, sub-endocardial cells, and cells from the middle of the wall, isolated from canine left ventricle.In this work a heterogenous electromechanical model was used to reconstruct these experiments of Cordeiro et al. in the computer. A simulation framework, which is consisting of an electrophysiological cell model, a tension development model and an elastomechanical model was used to simulate the cell shortening. Two experiments with different heterogeneities had been conducted. The first experiment examined, how the heterogeneity of the membrane channels influences the cell shortening. In the second experiment the additional impact of the heterogeneity of the intracellular calcium handling was analyzed. The results of the simulations were compared qualitatively to the findings of Cordeiro et al.