Modeling excitable media by a one variable cellular automaton: Application to the cardiac case

The dynamics of an assembly of cardiac cells is modeled by a simple cellular automaton that reduces to a single variable the two variable competition of the standard models of excitable media. Furthermore, a short superexcitability period is introduced, as suggested by the dynamics of the single cardiac miocyte. The model reproduces several pathological cardiac behaviors as, e.g., the fast transition from normal behavior to fibrillation, showing how this latter one can either occur over the whole spatial domain or can be confined within a limited region.