INTEGRAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE HUMAN CARDIAC ELECTRICAL GENERATOR FROM ELECTRIC-FIELD MEASUREMENTS BY MEANS OF AN AUTOMATIC CYLINDRICAL COORDINATOR

An automated electronic system based upon a cylindrical coordinator was constructed for measurement and preliminary computational processing of the heart electrical potentials on the surface of a human torso and of the coordinates of this surface. The potential distribution on the body surface at consecutive instants of time and the geometrical parameters of the body received as the output of the measuring system can be used for investigation of various types of mathematical descriptions, or models of the cardiac electrical generator. One such mathematical description, a set of integral characteristics of the cardiac electrical generator, is studied in this work. These characteristics are: three components of the heart dipole moment, three coordinates of the moving cardiac electrical center and the complexity parameter of the cardiac generator. The results of experimental measurement of the cardiac electrical field and calculation of the integral characteristics of the cardiac generator are presented for a group of healthy men. Physical and electrophysiological significance of the results is briefly discussed. Copyright © 1979 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.