Simulation of Individual Electrical Potentials of Heart at Arms and Legs

Sinoatrial (SA) node is the natural pacemaker which triggers itself and the signal is passed over to other nodes of the Heart. Electrocardiogram (ECG) is the result of these electrical activities which is generally picked up by the electrodes from the arms and legs. This paper explains the procedure to find the potentials at arms and legs from the augmented leads graphs taken from any standard ECG machine. MATLAB tool is used to extract the data from the augmented lead graphs. First the graph is scanned and then using image processing tools of MATLAB, the data is extracted from augmented leads. It is scaled by a factor of 1.5 and the signals at arms i.e. RA, LA and leg i.e. LL are generated. Lead II signal obtained from this simulated arms and legs signals is compared with the Lead II graph obtained from the ECG machine of the same patient. The result of correlation obtained with the simulated Lead II signal and Lead II signal taken directly from the ECG machine is 100%, which shows that using the above technique, the electrical activities of the SA node are simulated properly and the individual potentials of the Heart obtained at arms and legs can be used for further analysis purposes.