Modelling myocardial excitation wavefront propagation in ventricles by finite element solution of an eikonal equation

The spreading of excitation in ventricular myocardium is modelled by treating the thin region of rapidly depolarizing tissue as a propagating wavefront. The model determines tissue excitation time using an eikonal equation that includes the effects of wavefront orientation in the myocardial structure and wavefront curvature. Use of a Petrov-Galerkin finite element method with a no-inflow boundary condition enables the eikonal equation to be solved on reasonably coarse meshes of cubic Hermite elements. The method is applied successfully on a model of the complete canine ventricular myocardium.