2006 Heart-Brain summit proceedings
Role of the brain in ventricular fibrillation and hypertension:
From animal models to early human studies
ARTICLE INTRODUCTION
Sudden cardiac death is caused by ventricular fibrillation (VF), not by myocardial ischemia. Ventricular tachycardia, the precursor to VF, results dynamically from a “rotor” that occurs in the excitable medium of the myocardium. The rotor is a self-sustaining vortex with its wave front of depolarization extending outward from a pivot point, with the inner circles moving more slowly than the outer. The rotor is a couple of centimeters in diameter, and the pivot point meanders randomly. When its outer edges strike nonexcitable tissues, such as an artery or an old infarction, the initial rotor breaks up into secondary and tertiary rotors to produce the disorganized excitability of VF.
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