An elderly gentleman with heart disease was admitted to hospital for treatment of an abnormal heart rhythm called ventricular tachycardia. This potentially fatal rhythm can occur days, or even years, after a heart attack. It is associated with an abnormally rapid heartbeat that arises from tissue in the heart attack‐damaged portions of the ventricles—the two main pumping chambers of the heart. (See the box on page 41.)
Topics
Diseases and conditions
REFERENCES
1.
For a description of these procedures, see M. E. Josephson, Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology: Techniques and Interpretations, 2nd ed., Lea and Febiger, Philadelphia (1993);
and E. N. Prystowsky, G. J. Klein, Cardiac Arrhythmias: An Integrated Approach for the Clinician, McGraw‐Hill, New York (1994).
2.
J. Rinzel, in Research Notes in Mathematics. Nonlinear Diffusion, W. E. Fitzgibbon, H. R. Walker, eds., Pitman, London (1977), p. 186.
A. T. Winfree, When Time Breaks Down: The Three‐Dimensional Dynamics of Electrochemical Waves and Cardiac Arrhythmias, Princeton U.P., Princeton, N.J. (1987).
J.
Starobin
, Y. I.
Zilberter
, C. F.
Starmer
, Physica D
70
, 321
(1994
).3.
A. T. Winfree, The Geometry of Biological Time, Springer‐Verlag, New York (1980).
L. Glass, M. C. Mackey, From Clocks to Chaos: The Rhythms of Life, Princeton U.P., Princeton, N.J. (1988).
4.
5.
A.
Shrier
, H.
Dubarsky
, M.
Rosengarten
, M. R.
Guevara
, S.
Nattel
, L.
Glass
, Circulation
76
, 1196
(1987
).6.
M. R. Guevara in Theory of the Heart: Biomechanics, Biophysics, and Nonlinear Dynamics of Cardiac Function, L. Glass, P. J. Hunter, A. McCulloch, eds., Springer‐Verlag, New York (1991), p. 313.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
M.
Courtemanche
, L.
Glass
, J. P.
Keener
, Phys. Rev. Lett.
70
, 2182
(1993
).M.
Courtemanche
, J. P.
Keener
, L.
Glass
, SIAM J. Appl. Math.
56
, 119
(1996
).12.
13.
V. I. Krinskii, Systems Theory Research (translation of Prob. Kib.) 20, 46 (1968).
For a recent review, see J. M. Davidenko, in Cardiac Electrophysiology: From Cell to Bedside, D. P. Zipes, J. Jalife, eds., 2nd ed., W. B. Saunders, Philadelphia (1995), p. 478.
See also several articles in Computational Biology of the Heart, A. Panfilov, A. V. Holden, eds., Wiley, Chichester, UK (1995).
14.
A.
Panfilov
, J. P.
Keener
, Chaos, Solitons and Fractals
5
, 681
(1995
).15.
R. A.
Gray
, J.
Jalife
, A.
Panfilov
, W. T.
Baxter
, C.
Cabo
, J. M.
Davidenko
, A. M.
Pertsov
, Circulation
91
, 2454
(1995
).16.
R.
Gray
, J.
Jalife
, A.
Panfilov
, W. T.
Baxter
, C.
Cabo
, J. M.
Davidenko
, A. M.
Pertsov
, Science
270
, 1222
(1995
).17.
D. S.
Rosenbaum
, L. E.
Jackson
, J. M.
Smith
, H.
Garan
, J. N.
Ruskin
, R. J.
Cohen
, New Engl. J. Med.
330
, 235
(1994
).18.
M. R.
Guevara
, L.
Glass
, A.
Shrier
, Science
214
, 1350
(1981
).D.
Chialvo
, R. F.
Gilmour
, J.
Jalife
, Nature
343
, 653
(1990
).19.
A.
Garfinkel
, M. L.
Spano
, W. L.
Ditto
, J. N.
Weiss
, Science
257
, 1230
(1992
).
This content is only available via PDF.
© 1996 American Institute of Physics.
1996
American Institute of Physics
You do not currently have access to this content.