Reentry in an anatomical model of the human ventricles

We study wave propagation in a recently developed model, which reproduces geometry and fiber orientation in the right and left ventricles of the human heart. The cardiac tissue is represented using the previously developed gamma-ionic model for human ventricular tissue using a spatial resolution of 0.5 mm. We simulate three-dimensional reentrant behavior resulting from a single vortex located in the free wall of the right, left ventricles and in the interventricular septum. We found that single reentrant scroll waves can generate V-shaped collision areas and in some cases, epicardial breakthrough patterns. The simulated ECGs of single spiral waves show similarities with monomorphic and polymorphic ventricular tachycardia, depending on the location of the reentrant sources. We model complex activation patterns resembling ventricular fibrillation by simulating the effects of an ATP-sensitive potassium channel opener and find that VF is, in that case, organized by a small number of vortices.