Modeling Excitable Systems: Reentrant Tachycardia

TL;DR

This paper explores models of excitable membranes relevant to cardiac and neural tissues, demonstrating a circuit simulation of reentrant tachycardia and its surgical treatment, suitable for educational and research projects.

Contribution

It introduces a circuit model simulating reentrant tachycardia and its ablation, linking nonlinear dynamics with practical biomedical applications.

Findings

Circuit successfully simulates reentrant tachycardia

Model demonstrates potential for surgical ablation simulation

Educational framework for studying excitable systems

Abstract

Excitable membranes are an important type of nonlinear dynamical system and their study can be used to provide a connection between physical and biological circuits. We discuss two models of excitable membranes important in cardiac and neural tissues. One model is based on the Fitzhugh-Nagumo equations and the other is based on a three-transistor excitable circuit. We construct a circuit that simulates reentrant tachycardia and its treatment by surgical ablation. This project is appropriate for advanced undergraduates as a laboratory capstone project, or as a senior thesis or honors project, and can also be a collaborative project, with one student responsible for the computational predictions and another for the circuit construction and measurements.