Visualization, analysis and physiological interpretation of three-dimensional cardiac electric fields

During the past 20 years experimental and simulation studies enabled our group, in cooperation with other university centers in the US and abroad, to measure and visualize the features of the potential fields and current distributions generated by an isolated heart placed in a torso-shaped electrolytic tank. Analysis of the distributions made it possible (a) to understand the relationships between excitation waves, potential fields, ECGs and the architecture of myocardial fibers; (b) to detect the effects of the rotational anisotropy of the heart muscle on the potential and current distributions in the torso and on the body surface; (c) to evaluate the accuracy of older and recent mathematical representations of excitation wave fronts and (d) to validate the results of inverse reconstructions, from body surface ECGs, of epicardial potentials, isochrones and electrograms in normal hearts, heart with ethanol necrosis or 4- or 5-day myocardial infarction and during ventricular tachycardias.