Numerical Simulation of Cardiac Bioelectric Activity
M. Weiser (Zuse Institute Berlin, Germany) and L. Pavarino (University of Milan, Italy)
Understanding the formation and development of the cardiac bioelectric activity is of great importance for advanced diagnostics and therapies for both acute and chronic heart diseases. The evolution of the intracellular, extracellular and transmembrane potentials can be described by coupling systems of partial differential equations modeling the cardiac tissue and systems of ordinary differential equations modeling the ionic currents through the cellular membrane. The reliable numerical simulation of these coupled multiscale systems is crucial for developing a quantitative understanding of activation and repolarization patterns, action potential distributions and reentry phenomena that can lead to arrhythmias and fibrillation. Due to the wide range of spatial and time scales involved in these models, their simulation poses a considerable challenge even to modern numerical methods. The aim of this minisymposium is to bring together researchers from different European groups working in the fields of cardiac modeling and numerical simulation, focusing on the latest developments and fostering new research.