A singularity-analysis approach to characterize epicardial electric potential

The cardiac electrical activity conforms a complex system, for which nonlinear signal-processing is required to characterize it properly. In this context, an analysis in terms of singularity exponents is shown to provide compact and meaningful descriptors of the structure and dynamics. In particular, singularity components reconstruct the epicardial electric potential maps of human atria, inverse-mapped from surface potentials; such approach describe sinus-rhythm dynamics as well as atrial futter and atrial fibrillation. We present several example cases in which the key descriptors in the form of fast-slow dynamics point at the arrhythmogenic areas in the atria.