Improvement of the cardiac oscillator based model for the simulation of bundle branch blocks

Abstract

In this paper, we propose an improvement of the cardiac conduction system based on three modified Van der Pol oscillators. Each oscillator represents one of the components of the heart conduction system: Sino-Atrial node (SA), Atrio-Ventricular node (AV) and His-Purkinje system (HP). However, while SA and AV nodes can be modelled through a single oscillator, the modelling of HP by using a single oscillator is a rough simplification of the cardiac behaviour. In fact, the HP bundle is composed of Right (RB) and Left Bundle (LB) branches that serve, respectively, the right and left ventricles. In order to describe the behaviour of each bundle branch, we build a phenomenological model based on four oscillators: SA, AV, RB and LB. For the characterization of the atrial and ventricular muscles, we used the modified FitzHugh-Nagumo (FHN) equations. The numerical simulation of the model has been implemented in Simulink. The simulation results show that the new model is able to reproduce the heart dynamics generating, besides the physiological signal, also the pathological rhythm in case of Right Bundle Branch Block (RBBB) and Left Bundle Branch Block (LBBB). In particular, our model is able to describe the communication interruption of the conduction system, when one of the HP bundle branches is damaged.