Control of scroll wave turbulence using resonant perturbations

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that resonant perturbations can effectively and rapidly suppress scroll wave turbulence in three-dimensional excitable media, including cardiac tissue, with lower energy than traditional methods.

Contribution

It introduces a novel resonant frequency perturbation technique for controlling 3D scroll wave turbulence, showing significant improvements over non-resonant methods.

Findings

Resonant perturbations terminate turbulence faster than non-resonant ones.

Resonant methods require lower strength than current clinical defibrillation pulses.

Resonant control is effective in both modulation of excitability and extra current modes.

Abstract

Turbulence of scroll waves is a sort of spatio-temporal chaos that exists in three-dimensional excitable media. Cardiac tissue and the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction are examples of such media. In cardiac tissue, chaotic behaviour is believed to underlie fibrillation which, without intervention, precedes cardiac death. In this study we investigate suppression of the turbulence using stimulation of two different types, "modulation of excitability" and "extra transmembrane current". With cardiac defibrillation in mind, we used a single pulse as well as repetitive extra current with both constant and feedback controlled frequency. We show that turbulence can be terminated using either a resonant modulation of excitability or a resonant extra current. The turbulence is terminated with much higher probability using a resonant frequency perturbation than a non-resonant one. Suppression of the turbulence using a resonant frequency is up to fifty times faster than using a non-resonant frequency, in both the modulation of excitability and the extra current modes. We also demonstrate that resonant perturbation requires strength one order of magnitude lower than that of a single pulse, which is currently used in clinical practice to terminate cardiac fibrillation. Our results provide a robust method of controlling complex chaotic spatio-temporal processes. Resonant drift of spiral waves has been studied extensively in two dimensions, however, these results show for the first time that it also works in three dimensions, despite the complex nature of the scroll wave turbulence.