Dynamics of Cardiac Arrhythmias

AUG 01, 1996

Physicists, considering the heart as an excitable medium driven by limit‐cycle oscillators, can help cardiologists gain important insights into the prevention and control of deadly arrhythmias.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881510

Leon Glass

An elderly gentleman with heart disease was admitted to hospital for treatment of an abnormal heart rhythm called ventricular tachycardia. This potentially fatal rhythm can occur days, or even years, after a heart attack. It is associated with an abnormally rapid heartbeat that arises from tissue in the heart attack‐damaged portions of the ventricles—the two main pumping chambers of the heart. (See the box on page 41.)

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References

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More about the authors

Leon Glass, McGill University, Montreal.