Routes to chaos and the onset of ventricular fibrillation
by
Harold M. Hastings
Hofstra University
Coauthors: Steven J. Evans (Beth Israel Medical Center), Flavio Fenton (Hofstra University)

Ventricular fibrillation is a major cause of death in the industrialized world. Ventricular fibrillation is widely believed to be described as spatio-temporal chaos. A initial period-doubling bifurcation has recently been causally linked with the breakdown in cardiac dynamics which leads to fibrillation. This talk will explore subsequent steps in the onset of ventricular fibrillation within the context of routes to chaos. Understanding these multiple routes to chaos may ultimately help design better anti-arrhythmic drugs and avoid problems found with several early anti-arrhythmics. An interesting historical remark: the period-doubling bifurcation was first explained through iteration of a map of the interval in 1968 (Nolasco and Dahlen).

Date received: May 22, 2001

Copyright © 2001 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # cagw-75.