Use of new computer modeling methods in the study of cardiac action potential propagation

A new algorithm is presented for the simulation of action potentials propagating in cardiac tissue. The algorithm definition reflects the multicellular, dynamical nature of the system. It is explicit, but allows the use of large timesteps, which may be individually chosen for each time advance and each cell. The method is well over an order of magnitude faster than standard fixed-timestep methods, and is particularly efficient for small cell sizes compared to other variable timestep methods.