# In silico thermal control of spiral wave dynamics in excitable cardiac tissue

## TL;DR

This paper proposes using low temperatures to control dangerous heart rhythms without drugs, shocks, or surgery.

## Contribution

A novel non-invasive method using thermal control to manage cardiac arrhythmias is introduced.

## Key findings

- Regional cooling creates electrophysiological inhomogeneity to control reentrant waves.
- The method avoids drugs, genetic modification, and physical damage to the heart.
- This approach is presented as a sustainable clinical treatment for cardiac arrhythmias.

## Abstract

Self-organizing spiral waves of excitation occur in many complex excitable systems. In the heart, for example, they are associated with the occurrence of fatal cardiac arrhythmias such as tachycardia and fibrillation, which can lead to sudden cardiac death. The control of these waves is therefore necessary for the treatment of the disease. In this letter, I present an innovative approach to control cardiac arrhythmias using low (nonfreezing) temperatures. This approach differs from all previous established techniques in that it involves no drugs, no genetic modification, no injection of foreign bodies, no application of voltage shocks (high or low, single or pulsed), and no curative damage to the heart. It relies on regional cooling of cardiac tissue to create a transient inhomogeneity in the electrophysiological properties. This inhomogeneity can then be manipulated to control the dynamics of the reentrant waves. This approach is, to my knowledge, the most sustainable theoretical proposal for the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias in the clinic.