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Spatial and temporal organization during cardiac fibrillation

Nature volume 392, pages 75–78 (1998)Cite this article

An Erratum to this article was published on 14 May 1998

Abstract

Cardiac fibrillation (spontaneous, asynchronous contractions of cardiac muscle fibres) is the leading cause of death in the industrialized world1, yet it is not clear how it occurs. It has been debated whether or not fibrillation is a random phenomenon. There is some determinism during fibrillation2,3, perhaps resulting from rotating waves of electrical activity4,5,6. Here we present a new algorithm that markedly reduces the amount of data required to depict the complex spatiotemporal patterns of fibrillation. We use a potentiometric dye7 and video imaging8,9 to record the dynamics of transmembrane potentials at many sites during fibrillation. Transmembrane signals at each site exhibit a strong periodic component centred near 8 Hz. This periodicity is seen as an attractor in two-dimensional-phase space and each site can be represented by its phase around the attractor. Spatial phase maps at each instant reveal the ‘sources’ of fibrillation in the form of topological defects, or phase singularities10, at a few sites. Using our method of identifying phase singularities, we can elucidate the mechanisms for the formation and termination of these singularities, and represent an episode of fibrillation by locating singularities. Our results indicate an unprecedented amount of temporal and spatial organization during cardiac fibrillation.

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Figure 1: Temporal organization.
Figure 2: Snapshots of phase from the heart surface of the rabbit and sheep during sustained fibrillation.
Figure 3: Initiation of a pair of spatial phase singularities.
Figure 4: Dynamics of phase singularities.

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Acknowledgements

We thank O. Berenfield, Z. Silverman, J. Jiang and M. Flanagan for technical assistance and M. Vinson for reading the manuscript. This work was supported by grants from the Whitaker Foundation and the N.I.H.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pharmacology, SUNY Health Science Center, 766 Irving Avenue, Syracuse, 13210, New York, USA

    Richard A. Gray, Arkady M. Pertsov & José Jalife

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Medicine Division of Cardiovascular Disease, University of Albama at Birmingham, 1670 University Blvd, Birmingham, 35294-0019, Alabama, USA

    Richard A. Gray

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  1. Richard A. Gray
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  3. José Jalife
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Correspondence to Richard A. Gray.

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Gray, R., Pertsov, A. & Jalife, J. Spatial and temporal organization during cardiac fibrillation. Nature 392, 75–78 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/32164

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