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Optical control of excitation waves in cardiac tissue

Nature Photonics volume 9, pages 813–816 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

In nature, macroscopic excitation waves1,2 are found in a diverse range of settings including chemical reactions, metal rust, yeast, amoeba and the heart and brain. In the case of living biological tissue, the spatiotemporal patterns formed by these excitation waves are different in healthy and diseased states2,3. Current electrical and pharmacological methods for wave modulation lack the spatiotemporal precision needed to control these patterns. Optical methods have the potential to overcome these limitations, but to date have only been demonstrated in simple systems, such as the Belousov–Zhabotinsky chemical reaction4. Here, we combine dye-free optical imaging with optogenetic actuation to achieve dynamic control of cardiac excitation waves. Illumination with patterned light is demonstrated to optically control the direction, speed and spiral chirality of such waves in cardiac tissue. This all-optical approach offers a new experimental platform for the study and control of pattern formation in complex biological excitable systems.

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Figure 1: All-optical system for control of wave dynamics in biological media.
Figure 2: Optical control of cardiac wave direction.
Figure 3: Optical control of cardiac wave conduction velocity.
Figure 4: Optical control of spiral wave chirality in cardiac monolayer.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank T. Wilson, H. Bien and S. Aslam for discussions and technical assistance, and E. Mann for use of the DMD projector (Royal Society Grant RG110135). G.B. acknowledges support from the BHF Centre of Research Excellence, Oxford (RE/08/004). R.A.B.B. holds an EPSRC Developing Leaders Grant, a Goodger award, a Winston Churchill Fellowship and Paul Nurse Junior Research Fellowship (Linacre College, Oxford). J.T. acknowledges support from the Bakala Foundation. This work was supported by MR/K015877/1 (G.B.), NIH R01 HL111649 and NSF-Biophotonics grant 1511353 (E.E.), as well as a NYSTEM grant C026716 to the Stony Brook Stem Cell Centre.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, Sherrington Building, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PT, UK

    Rebecca A. B. Burton, Jakub Tomek, Alex Corbett & Gil Bub

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794, USA

    Aleksandra Klimas, Christina M. Ambrosi & Emilia Entcheva

  3. Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PJ, UK

    Alex Corbett

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  1. Rebecca A. B. Burton
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  7. Gil Bub
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Contributions

G.B. and E.E. initiated the project and provided guidance. R.A.B.B. and G.B. performed the experiments. G.B. wrote the software to collect and analyse the data. C.M.A. and E.E. developed and provided biological materials and guidance on the optogenetic manipulations. R.A.B.B., A.C., J.T. and A.K. helped with data interpretation and figure preparation. G.B. and E.E. wrote the manuscript with contributions from all authors. All authors were involved in analysis of the results and revision of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Gil Bub.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Burton, R., Klimas, A., Ambrosi, C. et al. Optical control of excitation waves in cardiac tissue. Nature Photon 9, 813–816 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2015.196

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