Imaging and Computing Seminar

Paul Hand, Courant Institute, NYU.

Title:
Easing Cardiac Simulations by Homogenization

Abstract:
Computer simulations of cardiac tissue have the potential to provide a new environment for testing clinical treatments for heart disease and pathologies.  Although the biophysics of ion flow at the cellular level is well understood, simulations that resolve individual cells are computationally intractable.  Hence, there is a need for tissue level descriptions that capture the system's dynamics.  The so-called bidomain equations provide this description, but they contain parameters which are difficult to measure.  We will present a modification to how heart muscle is typically described.  This modification, combined with the mathematical process of homogenization, will lead to cheaper computations of the bidomain parameters and a more mathematically natural framework for exploring the effects of different assumptions on the structure of heart tissue.  Time permitting, we will also use homogenization to derive tissue-level equations for an alternative cardiac communication mechanism.  Joint work with Charles Peskin and Boyce Griffith (NYU).