Cardiac Tissue Mapping Electrode Array to Determine Pro-Arrhythmic Tissue Substrates

Myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, is the irreparable necrosis of the cardiac tissue due to sustained ischemia. MI may lead to heart failure. Despite advances in treatments, the number of patients with heart failure is increasing. Engineered heart tissue, EHT, could offer an innovative approach to treating areas of infarcted cardiac tissue. Ideally, EHT should integrate and function with the native heart without causing a higher risk for complications. The purpose of this study is to design a system to identify potentially arrhythmogenic sites in EHT. Specifically, an electrode array complete with DAQ system and data analysis program was developed to record electrical propagation and interpret conduction velocity (CV) speeds to identify areas of slow conduction. This system has the ability to analyze the activation times, calculate CV vector fields, and identify areas within the mapping window that display slow CV speeds and are considered arrhythmic-prone