Termination of reentry by infra- and supra-threshold pulses (Q1577195)

In excitable media, typical and very stable patterns are spiral waves. They arise by reentry of an excitation wave in the cardiac tissue, and are believed to create ventricular fibration, i.e., cardiac death. The usual therapy is electro-shock, which extinguishes the pathological excitation, but harms the cardiac tissue. The authors set up an experimental and coupled ODE model with suitable parameter values for cardiac tissue, and investigate low voltage and frequency pulse trains that extinguish the spiral wave. They find two ways to terminate reentry: infra- and supra-threshold pulses, and numerically investigate these mechanims. Moreover, they give detailed physiological interpretations.