Doctors, scientists, and engineers from UCLA have created a computer model of a heart that sheds new light on how congestive heart failure affects the organ’s electrical signals.

The model — based on a rabbit’s heart — illustrates what happens to heart cells and tissue when the normal levels of calcium, potassium and sodium ions are disrupted. It also shows what happens to a healthy heart when it is affected by disease.

In the following video, the changes in the heart during ventricular fibrillation, a condition in which the heart beat is fragmented and erratic, can be seen with the team’s computer model:


The researchers — who published their findings last week in PLOS Computational Biology — said that the computer model can help doctors determine which drug therapies are most effective (and where and when to utilize them) since the model can illustrate how certain medications work.

The study also showed that ventricular fibrillation can be caused by the slowing down of cellular processes at the top of the heart during heart failure, and the researchers said they plan to use their model to develop a new drug strategy against the condition.

A senior author of the paper and leader of the project was William S. Klug, a UCLA mechanical and aerospace engineering professor who was tragically gunned down by a former student in his office on June 1.

“[Klug’s] work will live on in this model, which can potentially help many who suffer from arrhythmias in congestive heart failure,” said Alan Garfinkel, the study’s principal investigator, in a statement.

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