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Hysteresis and bistability in periodically paced cardiac tissue
Xiaodong Huang1, Yu Qian, Xiaoming Zhang
1Department of Physics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
Abstract:
Hysteresis in periodically paced cardiac tissue is an important issue due to its relevance to cardiac arrhythmias. In the present paper, the mechanism of hysteresis formation and the related properties are interpreted by numerically investigating the phase I Luo-Rudy model. A formula calculating the width of hysteresis is proposed and well confirmed by numerical simulations. We also find that hysteresis in cardiac tissue shows several characteristics due to couplings among cardiac cells which are absent in a single cell. The influences of the physiological parameters are studied in detail. The model dependence of hysteresis is elucidated by considering a number of well-known models of excitable media. Moreover, the influence of bistability on controlling arrhythmias is revealed.
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