April 18, 2008 - 3:30 p.m.
Leon Glass, McGill University

Cardiac Arrhythmias - From Simple Models to the Clinic

The human heart is capable of sustaining a large number of different types of abnormal cardiac rhythms - called cardiac arrhythmias. A challenge facing experimentalists and theoreticians is to derive sufficient understanding of these abnormal rhythms that an impact can be made in improving the therapy of patients with heart disease. In this talk I will summarize some of the approaches being taken. Simple theoretical and biological models often display complex rhythms that shed insight into the underlying mechanisms of the arrhythmias. One current experimental approach is to use optical imaging to study the dynamics of cardiac cells in tissue culture which is grown in different shapes, and which is subjected to different types of stimulation and drug application to initiate and terminate abnormal rhythms. These rhythms can be analyzed using mathematical and physical approaches. It is also possible to study the dynamics of cardiac arrhythmias in people, using data obtained from long term recordings. If we learn to interpret this data better, it should be possible to improve the therapy for patients experiencing cardiac arrhythmias such as atrial fibrillation, as well as patients who are at risk of sudden cardiac death. I will summarize where we are now, and where the challenges lie.