Endo-Epi cardiac substrate characterization: an experimental study from animal model to the human heart

• Grant number: 23/04822-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: December 01, 2023
• End date: November 30, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Biomedical Engineering - Bioengineering
• Principal Investigator: João Loures Salinet Júnior
• Grantee: Jimena Gabriela Siles Paredes
• Supervisor: Flavio H. Fenton
• Host Institution: Centro de Engenharia, Modelagem e Ciências Sociais Aplicadas (CECS). Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC). Ministério da Educação (Brasil). Santo André , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Georgia Institute of Technology, United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 20/03601-9 - Experimental study on the accurate characterization of the atria epicardium substrate during atrial fibrillation, BP.DR

Abstract

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is one of the most common cardiac arrhythmias and affects between 1 and 2% of the world's population, with high morbidity and mortality. However,the interpretation of the results of commercial electrical mapping systems in many casesis complex and uncertain, making it difficult to appropriately characterize and localize thearrhythmogenic sources, reducing the effectiveness of treatment by ablation. AF is characterized by fast and irregular atrial activity. During the last decades, several mechanisms ofinitiation and maintenance of AF have been proposed, from specific regions that drive thearrhythmia through ectopic sources or quasi-stable re-entrant drivers (functional re-entrantrotor mechanisms or structural micro-anatomic re-entries), to disrupt the conduction ofmultiple stable wavelets that become fragmented. It is also possible that numerous AFdriving mechanisms may occur in the same patient. Recently, an additional mechanismwas proposed: endo-epicardial dissociation, suggesting that an electrical dissociation of theintramural layers of the myocardium could sustain fibrillation. Due to the complexity offibrillation and the great sensitivity to errors of the existing commercial systems, proposalvalidation must be made carefully through experiments with controlled conditions. The central objective of this project is to characterize the Endo-Epi cardiac substrate through anex-vivo experimental model of simultaneous electrical contact mapping and optical mappingin animal and human hearts. The following project is strongly connected to the Ph.D. candidate project, with the great benefit of transferring the process from animal experiments tohuman hearts and studying a novel mechanism that is not included in the original proposal. (AU)