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Optical Mapping Of The Interactions Between Cardiac Geometry And Electrical Activity, Elliot B. Bourgeois

All ETDs from UAB

In healthy hearts, the synchronized spread of electrical activation drives contraction. To investigate the role of cardiac geometry in modulating normal and abnormal electrical rhythms, we stained cardiac tissues with a fluorescent, voltage sensitive dye and imaged activation patterns with fast video cameras (optical mapping). This work is presented in three projects. Computer modeling has shown that conduction velocity increases when fibers are bowed toward the oncoming wavefront and decreases when fibers are bowed in the opposite direction. In the first project, cultured monolayers of cardiac myocytes were optically mapped to experimentally verify the theoretical effect of fiber curvature on …