Abstract

DOMINGUEZ, Ivonne; BARRIO, Rafael A.; VAREA, Carmen  and  ARAGON, José Luis. Model for propagation of solitary waves in the heart. TIP [online]. 2013, vol.16, n.2, pp.79-92. ISSN 1405-888X.

In cardiac electrical activity, different types of waves meander through the heart. We present a model of the electrical activity of the heart that proposes that the homogeneous wave fronts propagating through the heart are in fact solitons. We use a general set of reaction-diffusion equations known as the Barrio-Varea-Aragón-Maini (BVAM) model^[1]that presents a wealth of non-linear bifurcations, and we are able to follow the route to chaos, using a mapping of the amplitude equations to the dynamics of the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation. We study the dynamics of wave fronts numerically in the BVAM model to describe the mechanisms leading to heart fibrillation and compare the findings with experimental data.

Keywords : Electrical activity of the heart; chaos; reaction-difusion systems; solitons.

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