Simulation Study of Cellular Electric Properties in Heart Failure

Abstract—Patients with severe heart failure are at high risk of sudden cardiac death. In the majority of these patients, sudden cardiac death is thought to be due to ventricular tachyarrhythmias. Alterations of the electric properties of single myocytes in heart failure may favor the occurrence of ventricular arrhythmias in these patients by inducing early or delayed afterdepolarizations. Mathematical models of the cellular action potential and its underlying ionic currents could help to elucidate possible arrhythmogenic mechanisms on a cellular level. In the present study, selected ionic currents based on human data are incorporated into a model of the ventricular action potential for the purpose of studying the cellular electrophysiological consequences of heart failure. Ionic currents that are not yet sufficiently characterized in human ventricular myocytes are adopted from the action potential model developed by Luo and Rudy (LR model). The main results obtained from this model are as follows: The act...