The "smart" escape interval: an innovative approach to cardiac pacing.

This study attempts to improve cardiac pacing by utilizing a new strategy based on integrative rather than substitutive stimulation. This type of cardiac stimulation does not compete with the sinoatrial oscillator and can position the stimulated beat at the expected time. This can be achieved by locking the pacemaker's escape interval to the sinus cycle, making it a variable parameter continuously updated on the preceding cycle.

Modeling excitable media by a one variable cellular automaton: Application to the cardiac case.

The dynamics of an assembly of cardiac cells is modeled by a simple cellular automaton that reduces to a single variable the two variable competition of the standard models of excitable media. Furthermore, a short superexcitability period is introduced, as suggested by the dynamics of the single cardiac miocyte. The model reproduces several pathological cardiac behaviors as, e.