Anomalous drift of spiral waves in heterogeneous excitable media

2009/09/24 by S. Sridhar, Sitabhra Sinha, Alexander V. Panfilov +1
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Computer Science · Mathematics · Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · #Cardiac electrophysiology and arrhythmias #Coupling (piping) #Diffusion #Excitable medium #Materials science #Mathematical analysis #Mathematics #Mechanics #Nonlinear Dynamics and Pattern Formation #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Spiral (railway) #Spiral wave #Traveling wave #nlin.PS #physics.bio-ph #q-bio.TO #stochastic dynamics and bifurcation

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.82.051908

published as Physical Review E, 82 (2010) 051908 · 4 pages, 4 figures

arxiv created 2009/09/24 · openalex publication_date 2010/11/04 · arxiv updated 2010/11/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We study the drift of spiral waves in a simple model of heterogeneous excitable medium, having gradients in the distribution of ion-channel expression or cellular coupling. We report the anomalous drift of spiral waves toward regions having shorter period or stronger coupling, in reaction-diffusion models of excitable media. Such anomalous drift can promote the onset of complex spatiotemporal patterns, e.g., those responsible for life-threatening arrhythmias in the heart.

Citations

• Wave-train-induced termination of weakly anchored vortices in excitable media
• Vortex dynamics in three-dimensional continuous myocardium with fiber rotation: Filament instability and fibrillation
• Stationary and drifting spiral waves of excitation in isolated cardiac muscle
• Spiral-wave dynamics depend sensitively on inhomogeneities in mathematical models of ventricular tissue