Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Spatial and temporal organization during cardiac fibrillation

R A Gray1, A M Pertsov, J Jalife

  • 1Department of Pharmacology, SUNY Health Science Center, Syracuse, New York 13210, USA. rag@crml.uab.edu

Nature
|March 24, 1998
PubMed
Summary

Cardiac fibrillation, a leading cause of death, shows surprising organization. New methods reveal phase singularities as the sources of this complex cardiac electrical activity.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Preclinical Assessment of the Abuse Potential of Purified Botanical Cannabidiol: Self-Administration, Drug Discrimination, and Physical Dependence.

The Journal of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics·2022
Same author

Pulmonary vein triggers, focal sources, rotors and atrial cardiomyopathy: implications for the choice of the most effective ablation therapy.

Journal of internal medicine·2016
Same author

Improving the assessment of heart toxicity for all new drugs through translational regulatory science.

Clinical pharmacology and therapeutics·2013
Same author

A contribution to the discussion on the safety of air weapons.

Science & justice : journal of the Forensic Science Society·2013
Same author

Decontamination of transvaginal ultrasound probes: review of national practice and need for national guidelines.

Clinical radiology·2012
Same author

Minimum Information about a Cardiac Electrophysiology Experiment (MICEE): standardised reporting for model reproducibility, interoperability, and data sharing.

Progress in biophysics and molecular biology·2011

Area of Science:

  • Cardiology
  • Biophysics
  • Computational Biology

Background:

  • Cardiac fibrillation is a major cause of mortality, but its underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood.
  • The debate continues on whether fibrillation is a random event or exhibits deterministic patterns, possibly due to rotating electrical waves.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To develop a novel algorithm for simplifying the analysis of complex spatiotemporal patterns in cardiac fibrillation.
  • To identify the organizing principles and sources of cardiac fibrillation using advanced imaging and data analysis.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized potentiometric dye and video imaging to record transmembrane potential dynamics across multiple cardiac sites.
  • Developed a new algorithm to reduce data requirements for depicting fibrillation patterns.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Analyzed transmembrane signals for periodic components and represented cardiac sites by their phase around a 2D-phase space attractor.

    • Main Results:

    • Identified a strong periodic component (around 8 Hz) in transmembrane signals at each site.
    • Spatial phase maps revealed topological defects, or phase singularities, as the 'sources' of fibrillation.
    • Demonstrated that locating phase singularities elucidates fibrillation formation, termination, and overall organization.

    Conclusions:

    • Cardiac fibrillation exhibits significant temporal and spatial organization, challenging the notion of it being a purely random phenomenon.
    • Phase singularities are key organizing centers in cardiac fibrillation.
    • The new algorithm provides an unprecedented method for representing and understanding cardiac fibrillation dynamics.