Analysis of atrial fibrillation Laplacian potential maps using spatial independent component analysis

A novel methodology that uses spatial independent component analysis (SICA) to study atria fibrillation (AF) was proposed. Component patterns and their associated time course were extracted from Laplacian potential maps using SICA. Simulation test patterns and potential maps were generated and used to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method. It was found that, the time courses that are extracted by SICA could review multiple activations in the simulated potential maps. Additionally, activation duration and number of activations are defined from the extracted time course. Experiment was conducted on eight open chest canines. During sustained AF, the activation durations increased 56.10% after infusion of Procainamide. On the other hand, the number of activation and the activation block numbers decreased from 2.48plusmn0.31 to 1.29plusmn0.19 and from 8.96plusmn0.52 to 6.41plusmn1.28, respectively. The results indicate that when AF occurs, there are multiple wavelets activated spontaneously around the periphery of the atrium. After Procainamide infusion, the numbers of wavelet and the numbers of activation block decreased. These results match the current knowledge of AF and indicate that the proposed technique has significant potential in the analysis of atria fibrillation. Studies will be conducted in the future to further validate its usefulness in clinical diagnosis.