Analysis of spatial and temporal evolution of regularity maps during ventricular fibrillation

The analysis of cardiac mapping allows investigating the structure of ventricular fibrillation (VF). This work analyzes regions of interest (ROI) on cardiac maps obtained from the regularity analysis of VF records, providing information about signal regularity at each time instant and its spatial distribution. Cardiac registers were obtained using a 240-electrodes matrix located on left ventricle of isolated rabbit heart. A Langendorff system was used to maintain the heart perfusion. VF was induced by increased frequencies. Two groups of records were considered: control (G1: without physical training, N = 10), and trained (G2, N = 9). Records were processed in consecutive 4-second segments. Regularity index (RI) was obtained for every segment and channel. RI is a measure of similarity degree among local activation waves for every channel. A map with the RI value of each channel was computed for the 82 register segments. To analyze the spatial distribution of RI, a threshold value was determined experimentally and applied to the map in order to obtain the ROI. Two parameters were calculated: ROI spatial number (ROIsn, a measure of spatial fragmentation), and ROI spatial area (ROIsa, the percentage of area map occupied by ROI). In case of the time course of ROI, two additional parameters were computed: the number of electrodes which value had changed respect to the threshold in two consecutive maps (ROIen, which is related with the change size), and the cumulative absolute differences of RI values for the electrodes which are changed (ROIed). Obtained results for spatial analysis show that the number of ROI is lower for trained rabbits (ROIsn; G1: 4.465 ? 1.120; G2: 2.,227 ? 0.623; p < 0.001), but ROI spatial area is greater than the control group (ROIsa; G1: 76.235 ? 5.355%; G2: 88.163 ? 2.885%; p < 0.001). Time-course analysis shows that more electrodes change between consecutive maps in the control group (ROIen, G1: 22.455 ? 6.702; G2: 13.877 ? 2.485; p < 0.001). No significant differences were found for ROIed (Gl: 18.509 ? 6.932; G2: 18.619 ? 4.196; n.s.). To conclude, ROI analysis on RI maps applied to trained and no trained rabbits groups shows that VF cardiac response is more irregular and spatially fragmented in no trained group. In addition, regularity maps are more stable with time in trained group.