Bayesian approach for localizing cardiac sources in Magnetocardiography using Vectorcardiography based total...

The human heart produces electrical signals to contract and relax its muscles that helps in its blood pumping activities. These electrical impulses give rise to electric potentials on the body surface and tiny magnetic field around the thorax. These functional activities can be investigated using Electro/Magnetocardiogram (E/MCG). The more challenging task in the E/MCG research is to image the cardiac dysfunctions in three dimensions not at the surface level but at the source level and this is called the inverse problem. To solve this, one has to model a generic structure of the discretised heart enclosed in the thorax mesh and their spatial relation with location of the MCG detectors, called forward problem. In this current research, sources in a homogeneous volume conductor model is used in the construction of forward problem. A novel algorithm is implemented that uses Vectocardiography (VCG) signals in the forward problem of MCG. Another objective of this paper includes the utilization of dynamic lead field based on VCG orientations in the inverse problem. In this study, the ill-posed problems are solved using Bayesian approach and the results are compared with the deterministic approach for measurements on noise signals. The analysis revealed that the proposed algorithms with VCG priors (that are extracted from the VCG signals) in the Bayesian framework significantly improved MCG source localization in cases of Myocardial Ischemia. Analysis from the study showed that the proposed algorithms with VCG priors in probabilistic methods significantly captured a good region of spread of the reconstructed borders of inverse solutions. The average spread for deterministic methods was around 3.5 - 4.3cm in the diseased cases with simulated true ruptured region of spread being 2.5cm. In contrast, Bayesian methods and total variation methods with VCG priors reduced the spread to 2.9 to 3.03cm, respectively. The introduction of VCG signals in the forward problem of MCG not only increases the accuracy of cardiomagnetic imaging but also provides a path for more reliable diagnostic tools in cardiology.