[Initial study on the characterization of atrial fibrillation in epicardial mapping]

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a complex and dangerous arrhythmia. The treatment method is still unefficient because of its unknown mechanism. The purpose of our research is to detect the electrical activity on the atria surface and therefore find the optimal technique to characterize AF for clinical application. All kinds of maps are presented clearly and the activity of sinus or AF rhythm can be seen quite differently. The active isopotential map can display the dynamic electrical conduction of the atrium as a movie. Sequentially the vectorgraph shows the direction of depolarization at every moment. Finally statistical results are also very useful for analysis on AF. Statistics of exciting frequency and correlation area show great difference in various channels during AF. "Source" or "sink" may be estimated by interval variance statistics. This study demonstrates the flexibility of the system in AF research. The statistical results can also be adopted to clearly express the characteristics of AF.