TY - JOUR
T1 - Modelling the heart as a communication system
AU - Ashikaga, Hiroshi
AU - Aguilar-Rodríguez, José
AU - Gorsky, Shai
AU - Lusczek, Elizabeth
AU - Marquitti, Flávia Maria Darcie
AU - Thompson, Brian
AU - Wu, Degang
AU - Garland, Joshua
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.
PY - 2015/4/6
Y1 - 2015/4/6
N2 - Electrical communication between cardiomyocytes can be perturbed during arrhythmia, but these perturbations are not captured by conventional electrocardiographic metrics. We developed a theoretical framework to quantify electrical communication using information theory metrics in two-dimensional cell lattice models of cardiac excitation propagation. The time series generated by each cell was coarse-grained to 1 when excited or 0 when resting. The Shannon entropy for each cell was calculated from the time series during four clinically important heart rhythms: normal heartbeat, anatomical reentry, spiral reentry and multiple reentry. We also used mutual information to perform spatial profiling of communication during these cardiac arrhythmias. We found that information sharing between cells was spatially heterogeneous. In addition, cardiac arrhythmia significantly impacted information sharing within the heart. Entropy localized the path of the drifting core of spiral reentry, which could be an optimal target of therapeutic ablation.We conclude that information theory metrics can quantitatively assess electrical communication among cardiomyocytes. The traditional concept of the heart as a functional syncytium sharing electrical information cannot predict altered entropy and information sharing during complex arrhythmia. Information theory metrics may find clinical application in the identification of rhythm-specific treatments which are currently unmet by traditional electrocardiographic techniques.
AB - Electrical communication between cardiomyocytes can be perturbed during arrhythmia, but these perturbations are not captured by conventional electrocardiographic metrics. We developed a theoretical framework to quantify electrical communication using information theory metrics in two-dimensional cell lattice models of cardiac excitation propagation. The time series generated by each cell was coarse-grained to 1 when excited or 0 when resting. The Shannon entropy for each cell was calculated from the time series during four clinically important heart rhythms: normal heartbeat, anatomical reentry, spiral reentry and multiple reentry. We also used mutual information to perform spatial profiling of communication during these cardiac arrhythmias. We found that information sharing between cells was spatially heterogeneous. In addition, cardiac arrhythmia significantly impacted information sharing within the heart. Entropy localized the path of the drifting core of spiral reentry, which could be an optimal target of therapeutic ablation.We conclude that information theory metrics can quantitatively assess electrical communication among cardiomyocytes. The traditional concept of the heart as a functional syncytium sharing electrical information cannot predict altered entropy and information sharing during complex arrhythmia. Information theory metrics may find clinical application in the identification of rhythm-specific treatments which are currently unmet by traditional electrocardiographic techniques.
KW - Cardiac arrhythmia
KW - Cardiac electrophysiology
KW - Information theory
KW - Mathematical modelling
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U2 - 10.1098/rsif.2014.1201
DO - 10.1098/rsif.2014.1201
M3 - Article
C2 - 25740854
AN - SCOPUS:84991980661
SN - 1742-5689
VL - 12
JO - Journal of the Royal Society Interface
JF - Journal of the Royal Society Interface
IS - 105
M1 - 20141201
ER -