The construction of an anatomically based model of the human ventricular conduction system

The ventricular conduction system is a complicated network of specialized muscle cells responsible for the transmission of electrical activity between the atria and the ventricles of the human heart. It has been the focus of numerous electrical and anatomical studies at both the microscopic and macroscopic levels. An understanding of its behavior at both levels is considered important, because it is primarily responsible for the spread of excitation in the ventricles. Previous computer models have been very simple ones that have been primarily adjuncts to models of the ventricles. This paper describes a strategy for the construction of conduction system models which is based on real microscopic and macroscopic features, although the model still is much simpler than reality. The model contains almost 35,000 individual cylindrical elements, each of whose physical dimensions approximate unit bundles of Purkinje and atrioventricular nodal cells. The model, whose physical appearance closely resembles that of the conduction system, was generated from limited anatomical data in less than 2 min CPU time on an IBM 3090 at the Cornell National Supercomputer Facility.