Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of mortality and morbidity in the Western Hemisphere. While significant progress has been made in treating a major sub-category of cardiac disease, arrhythmias, significant unmet needs remain. In particular, every day, thousands of patients die because of arrhythmias in the US alone, and atrial fibrillation is the most common arrhythmia affecting millions of patients in the US alone at a given time. Therefore, there is a public need to continue to develop new and better therapies for arrhythmias. Accordingly, an ever increasing number of biomedical, pharmaceutical, and medical personnel is interested in studying various aspects of arrhythmias at a basic, translational, and applied level, both in industry (ie Biotech, Pharmaceutical and device), and in academia. Not only has our overall understanding of molecular bases of disease dramatically increased, but so has the number of available and emerging molecular, pharmacological or device treatment based therapies. This practical, state-of-the art handbook will summarize and review key research methods and protocols, their advantages and pitfalls, with a focus on practical implementation, and collaborative cross-functional research. The volume will include visual and easy-to-use graphics, bulleted summaries, boxed summary paragraphs, links to reference websites, equipment manufacturers where appropriate, photographs of typical experimental setups and so forth, to keep this book very focused on practical methods and implementation, and yet, provide enough theory that the principles are clearly understood and can be easily applied.

Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of mortality and morbidity around the world. While significant progress has been made in treating a major sub-category of cardiac disease and arrhythmias, significant unmet needs remain. Every day, thousands of patients die due to arrhythmias in the U.S. alone, and atrial fibrillation is the most common arrhythmia that affects millions of Americans at any given time. Therefore, there is an urgent public need to continue to develop new and better therapies for arrhythmias. This book reviews key research methods and protocols in cardiac electrophysiology with a focus on advantages and pitfalls. It will discuss new developments as well as traditional treatments and methods. Chapters will focus on practical implementation and collaborative cross-functional research methods. The book will contain contributions from scientists and clinicians from various academic and industrial research institutions. The inclusion of industrial experts expands the scope and potential audience of this book, and provides important perspective beyond basic science. Contributors will include researchers and clinicians from academic institutions such as the University of Minnesota, Harvard, Washington University, Case Western, Indiana University, and Manchester University. Methods and Models in Cardiac Electrophysiology will be a must-have resource for clinical academic scientists, engineers from industry (Biotech, Pharma, and Medical Device), undergraduate and graduate students, physicians, biomedical engineers, and high school and college teachers interested in studying cardiac electrophysiology and cardiac function. The book may also be of interest to students in the fields of physiology, molecular biology, cellular biology, biomedical engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and related areas.

This book covers the main mathematical and numerical models in computational electrocardiology, ranging from microscopic membrane models of cardiac ionic channels to macroscopic bidomain, monodomain, eikonal models and cardiac source representations. These advanced multiscale and nonlinear models describe the cardiac bioelectrical activity from the cell level to the body surface and are employed in both the direct and inverse problems of electrocardiology. The book also covers advanced numerical techniques needed to efficiently carry out large-scale cardiac simulations, including time and space discretizations, decoupling and operator splitting techniques, parallel finite element solvers. These techniques are employed in 3D cardiac simulations illustrating the excitation mechanisms, the anisotropic effects on excitation and repolarization wavefronts, the morphology of electrograms in normal and pathological tissue and some reentry phenomena. The overall aim of the book is to present rigorously the mathematical and numerical foundations of computational electrocardiology, illustrating the current research developments in this fast-growing field lying at the intersection of mathematical physiology, bioengineering and computational biomedicine. This book is addressed to graduate student and researchers in the field of applied mathematics, scientific computing, bioengineering, electrophysiology and cardiology.

Multiscale modeling of cardiac electrophysiology helps to better understand the underlying mechanisms of atrial fibrillation, acute cardiac ischemia and pharmacological treatment. For this purpose, measurement data reflecting these conditions have to be integrated into models of cardiac electrophysiology. Several methods for this model adaptation are introduced in this thesis. The resulting effects are investigated in multiscale simulations ranging from the ion channel up to the body surface.AbstractEnglisch = Multiscale modeling of cardiac electrophysiology helps to better understand the underlying mechanisms of atrial fibrillation, acute cardiac ischemia and pharmacological treatment. For this purpose, measurement data reflecting these conditions have to be integrated into models of cardiac electrophysiology. Several methods for this model adaptation are introduced in this thesis. The resulting effects are investigated in multiscale simulations ranging from the ion channel up to the body surface.

This book is devoted to computer-based modeling in cardiology, by taking an educational point of view, and by summarizing knowledge from several, commonly considered delimited areas of cardiac research in a consistent way. First, the foundations and numerical techniques from mathematics are provided, with a particular focus on the finite element and finite differences methods. Then, the theory of electric fields and continuum mechanics is introduced with respect to numerical calculations in anisotropic biological media. In addition to the presentation of digital image processing techniques, the following chapters deal with particular aspects of cardiac modeling: cardiac anatomy, cardiac electro physiology, cardiac mechanics, modeling of cardiac electro mechanics. This book was written for researchers in modeling and cardiology, for clinical cardiologists, and for advanced students.

Widely regarded as the premier text in this complex field, Josephson’s Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology, Seventh Edition, provides a thorough understanding of the mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias and the therapeutic interventions used to treat them. Dr. David J. Callans, personally chosen and trained by Dr. Mark Josephson, provides expert clinical insights and superb illustrations that highlight proven approaches and methods. With its strong focus on physiologic investigation and its role in clinical decision making, this comprehensive text is a must-have reference for cardiology fellows, electrophysiologists, and others in the EP lab.