Dominant frequency maps of epicardial and body surface potentials during ventricular fibrillation - a computer model study

Recent findings indicate that stable organized centers of rapid activity (mother rotors) can maintain ventricular fibrillation (VF). Two computer models (one with a simplified cubic geometry and a morphologically correct one) were developed for understanding how this organized intracardiac cellular activity is reflected on the body surface during VF. Both models contained a driving region of fast periodic activity in the cardiac tissue. Comparing the dominant frequency maps of the body surface and the epicardium a spatial-temporal low pass filtering can be recognized. Whereas on the myocardium the organized region occurred from the mother rotor and a chaotic fibrillatory conduction in the rest of the cardiac tissue can be measured, no organized pattern was observable on the body surface and the DF was reduced in both models. It was shown that wave propagation transforms the spatial low pass filtering of the thorax into a temporal low pass in the far field. It hampers the observation of cardiac organization from the body surface. Note that no RC low pass structure was included in the models.