3-dimensional cardiac electrical activity simulation using aliev-panfilov model

The functional status of the heart can be investigated through mapping its electricalactivity. Although the experimental methods are popular in mapping the electricalactivity, ethical problems, limited spatial resolution, and high invasiveness make themdifficult to be applied. In order to overcome these problems, mathematical models aredeveloped. Ionic and tissue models are the two main mathematical approaches forelectrical modeling of the heart. While ionic models describe the dynamic behavior ofthe ionic currents, tissue models focus on the cardiac wavefront propagation. In thiswork, a computer simulation is performed for the three-dimensional (3D) activity ofthe heart using Aliev-Panfilov model, which is one of the tissue models. Once thesimulation results are obtained and then, they are compared with experimentalmeasurements coming from the different dog hearts. Because the heart geometriesused in the experimental measurements and simulations are from different dogs, ageometric registration procedure is applied for proper comparison. Several errorcriteria between the simulation results and experimental data are computed such ascorrelation coefficient (CC), root mean squares error (RMSE), and relative error (RE).The comparison of these results shows that CC is 0,87 m 0,06 , RMSE is 12,85 m 4,38and RE is 0,199 m 0,045 . The comparison of experimental results from different dogsindicates that CC is 0,87 m 0,08 , RMSE is 20,8 m 4,37 and RE is 0,335 m 0,095 . Theseresults show the feasibility of Aliev-Panfilov model for the simulation of 3D electricalactivity of the heart.KEY WORDS: Cardiac mapping, Aliev-Panfilov model, geometry registration, cardiacelectrical activity simulationAdvisor: Assist. Prof. Dr. Bülent Yılmaz, Başkent University, Department ofBiomedical Engineering