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On the Passive Cardiac Conductivity

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Abstract

In order to relate the structure of cardiac tissue to its passive electrical conductivity, we created a geometrical model of cardiac tissue on a cellular scale that encompassed myocytes, capillaries, and the interstitial space that surrounds them. A special mesh generator was developed for this model to create realistically shaped myocytes and interstitial space with a controled degree of variation included in each model. In order to derive the effective conductivities, we used a finite element model to compute the currents flowing through the intracellular and extracellular space due to an externally applied electrical field. The product of these computations were the effective conductivity tensors for the intracellular and extracellular spaces. The simulations of bidomain conductivities for healthy tissue resulted in an effective intracellular conductivity of 0.16S/m (longitudinal) and 0.005S/m (transverse) and an effective extracellular conductivity of 0.21S/m (longitudinal) and 0.06S/m (transverse). The latter values are within the range of measured values reported in literature. Furthermore, we anticipate that this method can be used to simulate pathological conditions for which measured data is far more sparse.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT

    Jeroen G. Stinstra & Rob S. MacLeod

  2. Cardio Vascular Research and Training Institute, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT

    Jeroen G. Stinstra & Rob S. MacLeod

  3. Department of Bioengineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT

    Rob S. MacLeod

  4. National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD

    Bruce Hopenfeld

  5. Nora Eccles Harrison Cardio Vascular Research and Training Institute, University of Utah, Room 207, 95 South 2000 East, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112-5000

    Jeroen G. Stinstra

Authors
  1. Jeroen G. Stinstra
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  2. Bruce Hopenfeld
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  3. Rob S. MacLeod
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Correspondence to Jeroen G. Stinstra.

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Stinstra, J.G., Hopenfeld, B. & MacLeod, R.S. On the Passive Cardiac Conductivity. Ann Biomed Eng 33, 1743–1751 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-005-7257-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-005-7257-7

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