Simulation of the long-QT syndrome in a model of human myocardium

Regional heterogeneity of electrophysiological properties within the human ventricular wall is based on changes in ion channel kinetics and densities. This leads to a dispersion of repolarization, which causes the positive T wave in the ECG. Due to genetic defects, diseases, or drugs, which causes e.g. long-QT syndrome, the physiological heterogeneous properties get out of tune. The aim of this work is to investigate the long-QT syndrome in a realistic model of human ventricular anatomy and electrophysiology. An anisotropic, three-dimensional, heterogeneous model is constructed, which incorporates an electrophysiological model describing complex ionic processes and a bidomain excitation model. LQT1, LQT2, and LQT3 were integrated in this model. The results show that this type of model is capable not only to simulate the electrophysiology but also pathological cases. The features of the long-QT syndrome are mainly characterized correctly in the simulations.