Activation propagation in cardiac ventricles using homogeneous monodomain model and model based on cellular automaton

The activation propagation characteristics obtained when using homogeneous monodomain model (MM) of the cardiac ventricles and the model based on cellular automaton (CA) are compared in this study. The MM comprises the reaction - diffusion equation of the propagation and the modified FitzHugh-Nagumo equations of the electrical excitation of cardiac cells. This model was simulated in Comsol Multiphysics environment. Model based on CA was simulated in Matlab program environment. Realistic activation time of about 80 ms was obtained for the whole ventricles when activation was started in nine analytically defined points. Differences in activation times obtained from the numerical solutions using MM and CA models were less than ±10 ms.