Experimental Validation of a Novel Extracellular-Based Source Representation of Acute Myocardial Ischemia

Electrocardiographic imaging (ECGI) based detection of myocardial ischemia requires an accurate formulation of the source model, which includes a relationship between extracellular and transmembrane potentials (TMPs). In this study, we used high-resolution intramural experimental recordings and forward modeling to examine the relationship between extracellular potentials and TMPs during myocardial ischemia. We measured extracellular electro-grams from intramural plunge needle arrays during seven controlled ischemia episodes in an animal model. We used three TMP source representations: (1) parameterized and distance-based (defined previously), (2) extracellular-based linear transform, and (3) extracellular-based sigmoidal transform. TMPs for each source formulation were then used to compute extracellular potentials by calculating the passive bidomain forward solution throughout the myocardium. We compared measured and computed potentials. Linear and sigmoidal approaches produced improved results compared to the parameterized method. The RMSE, SC, and TC of linear, sigmoidal, and parameterized methods were 0.85 mV, 1.21 mV, and 3.37 mV; 0.91, 0.88, and 0.47; 0.90, 0.77, and 0.33 respectively. We found extracellular-based calculations of TMPs produced superior forward computations compared to parameterized zones.