Influence of tissue anisotropy on the distribution of defibrillation fields

The development of new devices used for defibrillation and cardioversion is often supported by numerical simulations of the induced electric potentials and current distributions. The commonly used tools incorporate isotropic models of the tissue properties present in the human torso. A comparative study was conducted to characterize the influence of anisotropic compared to isotropic tissue modeling. Defibrillation shocks with amplitudes of 1000 V and 2000 V were simulated and a set of varying conductivity values and anisotropy ratios was examined. The inclusion of tissue anisotropy produced significantly smaller values for current density compared to isotropic calculations especially in the myocardial tissue.