Abstract :
The atrial electrical signal or P wave is becoming more widely studied because of the large incidence of atrial arrhythmias. There are few reporfs guantzfiing the spatial distribution of atrial signal amplitude in the 12- lead ECG. Our aims were to quantify the spatial distribution of atrial signal amplitudes in groups of healthy subjects and patients with atrial fibrillation, and to develop a simple model of atrial depolarisation based on a single dipole. Amplitude was significantly smaller (p < 0.05) in leads I, Ii, aV,, aV,, V5 and V6, and significantly larger in lead VI in atrial fibrillation compared with those of the healthy group. A single dipok model was able to qualitatively simulate the body surface atrial elecmrical signal in specific subjects from these groups.
