Optical Mapping System for Visualizing Arrhythmias in Isolated Mouse Atria

Optical mapping has become an important technique in the study of cardiac electrophysiology, especially in terms of investigating the mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias. The increasing availability of transgenic mice as models for cardiovascular disease is driving the need for instrumentation suitable for the study of electrical activity in the mouse heart. In this paper we evaluate our optical mapping system´s ability to clearly record induced arrhythmic activity in an isolated mouse atrial preparation. Preliminary results indicate that the signal quality is high enough that individual optically recorded action potentials can be discerned in many pixels, even without post-processing for noise removal. The optical mapping video is clear enough for general observations regarding the patterns of electrical propagation during arrhythmic behaviour. The induced arrhythmias appear to have a regular pattern of activity, and are likely best classified as atrial tachycardias