Principles and applications of the Laplacian electrocardiogram

Laplacian electrocardiography (ECG) is an attractive alternative approach toward the ultimate goal of mapping spatially distributed cardial electrical activity. Enhanced spatial resolution of mapping cardiac electrical activity is achieved by obtaining the Laplacian ECG over the body surface. The biophysics underlying this measurement is that the Laplacian ECG heavily weighs the contributions from the myocardial bioelectric sources that are closest to the recording location, whereas the potential ECG sums up the contributions from a large area of activated myocardial tissue. It is this nature of the Laplacian ECG that makes it possible to provide a more localized body surface manifestation of the underlying myocardial electrical activity.