Schedule Apr 28, 1999
Cardiac Electrodynamics - the Good, the Bad, the Non-linear
Dr. John Wikswo, Vanderbilt Univ.
The human heart is a biochemically powered, electrically activated, pressure- and volume-regulated, two-stage, tandem, mechanical pump with a mean time-to-failure of approximately two billion cycles. The spatial scales within the heart range from the ten-centimeter diameter of the entire heart to the nanometer pore of the gated ion channels. The time scales range from the one-second heart beat and the many seconds of a complex arrhythmia to the nanosecond conformational changes of protein channels. The experimental and theoretical challenge offered by studies of cardiac fibrillation arises from the fact that this non-linear phenomenon fully spans these scales: a factor of 10^9 in time and 10^24 in volume. This talk will present a bidirectional journey along this spatial scale, from the perspective of a physicist interested in both the forward and inverse problems as applied to cardiac electrodynamics. After the journey, time will be provided for the audience to ask questions about how their heart works, or doesn't.

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