The importance of including fiber oriented conductivity data in computational myocardium defibrillation analyses

The objective of this contribution is to investigate and evaluate the impact of modeling the directional aspects of the electrical conductivity of the heart muscle tissue in computational myocardium defibrillation analyses. The primary purpose of this study is to clarify the potential advantages and associated costs of applying a variety of increasingly detailed conductivity models to represent the myocardium tissue layers and fiber bundles in finite element based assessments of internal defibrillation performance. The goal of the investigation is to determine the value of including the anisotropic conductivity properties of the myocardium tissues within the computational formulations used to model, analyze and predict the overall efficacy of internal myocardium defibrillation, in terms of electrode design, placement and applied shock voltage. Computational tests confirm that including the anisotropic nature of the myocardium can play an important role in assessing viable locations and excitations for the internal defibrillation electrodes.