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Updated: Apr 12, 2026
Real-Time Cardiac Mapping with a Noninvasive Imageless Electrocardiographic Imaging System
Published on: April 11, 2025
Techniques for automated local activation time annotation and conduction velocity estimation in cardiac mapping
C D Cantwell1, C H Roney2, F S Ng3
1Department of Aeronautics, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London, UK; National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London, UK.
Insights
Calculating cardiac conduction velocity is key for understanding arrhythmias. This paper reviews methods for accurately measuring activation times and propagation speed from complex electrogram data.
Area of Science:
- Electrophysiology
- Cardiovascular Research
- Computational Biology
Background:
- Cardiac conduction velocity (CCV) measurements offer critical insights into cardiac arrhythmias.
- Accurate CCV calculation is challenging due to sparse, uncertain, and unevenly distributed data.
- Electrophysiological pathologies often involve complex activation wavefront propagation patterns.
Purpose of the Study:
- To survey algorithms for identifying local activation times (LATs) from electrograms.
- To assess methods for computing conduction direction and speed.
- To evaluate the suitability of these algorithms across different recording contexts and applications.
Main Methods:
- Review of mathematical approaches for conduction velocity calculation.
- Analysis of algorithms for LAT identification from electrograms.
- Assessment of algorithm performance based on data characteristics (sparsity, noise, morphology).
Main Results:
- Various algorithms exist for LAT identification and CCV computation.
- Algorithm suitability is context-dependent (data modality, species, recording environment).
- Challenges remain in handling complex electrogram morphologies and low signal-to-noise ratios.
Conclusions:
- Accurate CCV measurement is vital for arrhythmia research.
- Algorithm selection requires careful consideration of data quality and experimental context.
- Further development is needed for robust CCV calculation in diverse settings.
Abstract:
Measurements of cardiac conduction velocity provide valuable functional and structural insight into the initiation and perpetuation of cardiac arrhythmias, in both a clinical and laboratory context. The interpretation of activation wavefronts and their propagation can identify mechanistic properties of a broad range of electrophysiological pathologies. However, the sparsity, distribution and uncertainty of recorded data make accurate conduction velocity calculation difficult. A wide range of mathematical approaches have been proposed for addressing this challenge, often targeted towards specific data modalities, species or recording environments. Many of these algorithms require identification of activation times from electrogram recordings which themselves may have complex morphology or low signal-to-noise ratio. This paper surveys algorithms designed for identifying local activation times and computing conduction direction and speed. Their suitability for use in different recording contexts and applications is assessed.
