Effect of interelectrode distance on derivation of body surface Laplacian maps from potentials: a model study

A computer simulation study has been conducted to evaluate the effect of the interelectrode distance on the derivation of body surface Laplacian maps from body surface potential distribution. A three-dimensional computer heart-torso model was used to simulate cardiac electrical activity, body surface potential map (BSPM) and body surface Laplacian map (BSLM). A two-site pacing protocol was used to generate two simultaneous myocardial events over the anterior epicardium. The derived body surface Laplacian was estimated from the potential difference between the potential at the center point and the averaged potential over the four surrounding points. The present simulation results suggest that BSLM may be estimated from the body surface potentials if the interelectrode distance is reasonably small.