Control of re-entrant activity in a model of mammalian atrial tissue

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Abstract
We evaluate the feasibility of using resonant drift under feedback driven stimulation to control re-entrant excitation in atrial muscle. We simulate a two-dimensional sheet of atrial tissue, where the local kinetics are described by the Earm-Hilgemann-Noble equations for a rabbit atrial cell, and the effects of small amplitude spatially uniform forcing of the whole sheet are computed. Repetitive forcing can induce a drift of a spiral wave in the two-dimensional model, with a drift velocity of up to 10 cm s-1. For a 4 cm x 4 cm atrial surface this resonant drift can move the re-entrant spiral to the inexcitable boundaries, eliminating re-entry in less than 10 s when the amplitude of the repetitive stimulation is 10% that of the single shock defibrillation threshold.