Analysis of cardiac signals and cardiac modeling

On the one hand, this study focused on the analysis of electrocardiograms and intracardiac electrograms obtained during routine electrocardiographic examinations, intracardiac electrograms recorded on implantable defibrillator cardioverters, or measured during electrophysiological studies performed at the hospital; on the other side research focuses on cardiac modeling.

The first aspects regarded the cardiac electrical activity that was characterized by classical methods (correlation analysis, frequency analysis, ad hoc heuristics) or innovative methodologies. In the field of non-traditional methods, algorithms for quantifying deterministic chaos have been investigated, as the estimation of the "correlation dimension" and the "spectrum of Lyapunov exponents". Such characterizing parameters can be obtained through the study of time series. Purposes of these studies was the automatic recognition of the presence of arrhythmias, and to deepen the mechanisms triggering the initiation of cardiac arrhythmias.

In regards of the second aspect of this investigation, we aimed to set a model of the electrical activity of the heart, able to simulate normal and arrhythmia conditions of the heart. The outcome of the study includes simulations that allow visualization of electrical propagation in the heart muscle, as well as the reconstruction of the electrocardiographic signal by the ionic flows obtained in the simulation.

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