Complex Structure and Dynamics of the Heart

Complex Structure and Dynamics of the Heart
Author: Philip Bittihn
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2014-12-27
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3319122320

This award-winning thesis investigates the mechanisms underlying cardiac arrhythmia development and termination from an entirely new perspective. By viewing the heart as a complex system, the author uses theoretical tools from nonlinear dynamics combined with numerical simulations and experiments to achieve insights into the relationship between its structure and dynamics, thereby paving the way towards innovative low-energy defibrillation strategies. The work tackles, among other things: the effect of substrate heterogeneity on the spatial-temporal dynamics of cardiac arrhythmias and ways in which weak pulsed electric fields can be used to control these dynamics in heterogeneous cardiac tissue. The long-term vision of this research is to replace the current strategy of applying painful and sometimes tissue damaging electric shock – currently the only reliable way to terminate life-threatening fibrillation – by a more subtle but equally effective intervention. The book maps out a number of promising research directions for biophysicists and medical researchers working on the origins and treatment of cardiac arrhythmias.

Cardiac Dynamics

Cardiac Dynamics
Author: J. Baan
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 539
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 940098796X

Cardiac Dynamics is the name of a relatively young field of study, born from the fruitful interaction between branches of two different disciplines: medicine and physics. "Dynamics" is the branch of physics which deals with the action of forces on bodies or particles in motion or at rest. "Cardiac" relates to the clinical field of cardiology but also to cardiophysiology, both of which are specialized branches of medicine. Narrower than the well established field of Hemodynamics, Cardiac Dynamics is restricted to dynamic phenomena occurring in and around the heart. The mathematical treatment of such phenomena, however, is vastly more complex because of the intricate nature of the mechanisms involved in the cardiac action. Thus, whereas hemodynamics is concerned with predominantly passive (visco-) elastic structures - vessels - containing time-variant flow of viscous flui- blood -, the mechanical study of the heart requires additional con siderations such as: active elastic components representing the contractile mechanism of cardiac muscle, complex geometry and fiber structure in the myocardial wall, autoregulatory mechanisms, and intricate flow patterns associated with valve motion. Viewed in this light it is not surprising that attempts to describe ventricular pump function and to quantify contractile performance have not reached the level of sophistication which is common in e. g. arterial hemodynamics. For the same reason, many of the often simplified approaches to describe ventricular mechanics failed to stand up to more rigorous theoretical, experimental or clinical testing.

Fractal and Multifractal Facets in the Structure and Dynamics of Physiological Systems and Applications to Homeostatic Control, Disease Diagnosis and Integrated Cyber-Physical Platforms

Fractal and Multifractal Facets in the Structure and Dynamics of Physiological Systems and Applications to Homeostatic Control, Disease Diagnosis and Integrated Cyber-Physical Platforms
Author: Paul Bogdan
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2020-06-25
Genre:
ISBN: 2889635317

Widespread chronic diseases (e.g., heart diseases, diabetes and its complications, stroke, cancer, brain diseases) constitute a significant cause of rising healthcare costs and pose a significant burden on quality-of-life for many individuals. Despite the increased need for smart healthcare sensing systems that monitor / measure patients’ body balance, there is no coherent theory that facilitates the modeling of human physiological processes and the design and optimization of future healthcare cyber-physical systems (HCPS). The HCPS are expected to mine the patient’s physiological state based on available continuous sensing, quantify risk indices corresponding to the onset of abnormality, signal the need for critical medical intervention in real-time by communicating patient’s medical information via a network from individual to hospital, and most importantly control (actuate) vital health signals (e.g., cardiac pacing, insulin level, blood pressure) within personalized homeostasis. To prevent health complications, maintain good health and/or avoid fatal conditions calls for a cross-disciplinary approach to HCPS design where recent statistical-physics inspired discoveries done by collaborations between physicists and physicians are shared and enriched by applied mathematicians, control theorists and bioengineers. This critical and urgent multi-disciplinary approach has to unify the current state of knowledge and address the following fundamental challenges: One fundamental challenge is represented by the need to mine and understand the complexity of the structure and dynamics of the physiological systems in healthy homeostasis and associated with a disease (such as diabetes). Along the same lines, we need rigorous mathematical techniques for identifying the interactions between integrated physiologic systems and understanding their role within the overall networking architecture of healthy dynamics. Another fundamental challenge calls for a deeper understanding of stochastic feedback and variability in biological systems and physiological processes, in particular, and for deciphering their implications not only on how to mathematically characterize homeostasis, but also on defining new control strategies that are accounting for intra- and inter-patient specificity – a truly mathematical approach to personalized medicine. Numerous recent studies have demonstrated that heart rate variability, blood glucose, neural signals and other interdependent physiological processes demonstrate fractal and non-stationary characteristics. Exploiting statistical physics concepts, numerous recent research studies demonstrated that healthy human physiological processes exhibit complex critical phenomena with deep implications for how homeostasis should be defined and how control strategies should be developed when prolonged abnormal deviations are observed. In addition, several efforts have tried to connect these fractal characteristics with new optimal control strategies that implemented in medical devices such as pacemakers and artificial pancreas could improve the efficiency of medical therapies and the quality-of-life of patients but neglecting the overall networking architecture of human physiology. Consequently, rigorously analyzing the complexity and dynamics of physiological processes (e.g., blood glucose and its associated implications and interdependencies with other physiological processes) represents a fundamental step towards providing a quantifiable (mathematical) definition of homeostasis in the context of critical phenomena, understanding the onset of chronic diseases, predicting deviations from healthy homeostasis and developing new more efficient medical therapies that carefully account for the physiological complexity, intra- and inter-patient variability, rather than ignoring it. This Research Topic aims to open a synergetic and timely effort between physicians, physicists, applied mathematicians, signal processing, bioengineering and biomedical experts to organize the state of knowledge in mining the complexity of physiological systems and their implications for constructing more accurate mathematical models and designing QoL-aware control strategies implemented in the new generation of HCPS devices. By bringing together multi-disciplinary researchers seeking to understand the many aspects of human physiology and its complexity, we aim at enabling a paradigm shift in designing future medical devices that translates mathematical characteristics in predictable mathematical models quantifying not only the degree of homeostasis, but also providing fundamentally new control strategies within the personalized medicine era.

Principles of Heart Valve Engineering

Principles of Heart Valve Engineering
Author: Arash Kheradvar
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 414
Release: 2019-08-28
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0128146621

Principles of Heart Valve Engineering is the first comprehensive resource for heart valve engineering that covers a wide range of topics, including biology, epidemiology, imaging and cardiovascular medicine. It focuses on valves, therapies, and how to develop safer and more durable artificial valves. The book is suitable for an interdisciplinary audience, with contributions from bioengineers and cardiologists that includes coverage of valvular and potential future developments. This book provides an opportunity for bioengineers to study all topics relating to heart valve engineering in a single book as written by subject matter experts. Covers the depth and breadth of this interdisciplinary area of research Encompasses a wide range of topics, from basic science, to the translational applications of heart valve engineering Contains contributions from leading experts in the field that are heavily illustrated

Theory of Heart

Theory of Heart
Author: Leon Glass
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 617
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1461231183

In recent years there has been a growth in interest in studying the heart from the perspective of the physical sciences: mechanics, fluid flow, electromechanics. This volume is the result of a workshop held in July 1989 at the Institute for Nonlinear Sciences at the University of California at San Diego that brought together scientists and clinicians with graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who shared an interest in the heart. The chapters were prepared by the invited speakers as didactic reviews of their subjects but also include the structure, mechanical properties, and function of the heart and the myocardium, electrical activity of the heart and myocardium, and mathematical models of heart function.

Cardiac Surgery

Cardiac Surgery
Author: Shahzad G. Raja
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 1089
Release: 2020-02-11
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 3030241742

This textbook provides a succinct overview of cardiac surgery, with key concepts being emphasized throughout. An abundance of illustrations, intra-operative photographs, tables as well as information boxes, aids the reader to visualise, grasp and retain difficult concepts. The inclusion of evidence-based approaches to the management of a range of cardiac surgical conditions equips the reader with an understanding of how to overcome a variety of potentially tough clinical challenges. Concise Cardiac Surgery: A Complete Guide comprehensively covers a range of techniques used in cardiac surgery. It is therefore, an ideal resource for the trainee and practising cardiac surgeon seeking a practically focused text detailing how to apply the latest techniques and evidence-based approaches in their day-to-day practice.

Biomolecular NMR Spectroscopy

Biomolecular NMR Spectroscopy
Author: Andrew J. Dingley
Publisher: IOS Press
Total Pages: 488
Release: 2011
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1607506947

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is the most powerful technique for characterization of biomolecular structures at atomic resolution in the solution state. This timely book, entitled "Biomolecular NMR Spectroscopy," focuses on the latest state-of-the-art NMR techniques for characterization of biological macromolecules in the solid and solution state. The editors, Dr. Andrew Dingley (University of Auckland, New Zealand) and Dr. Steven Pascal (Massey University, New Zealand) have organized the book into four sections, covering the following topics: sample preparation, structure and dynamics of proteins, structure and dynamics of nucleic acids and protein-nucleic acid complexes, and rapid and hybrid techniques--

Dynamics, Synergetics, Autonomous Agents

Dynamics, Synergetics, Autonomous Agents
Author: Wolfgang Tschacher
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 340
Release: 1999
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9789810238377

This volume focuses on the modeling of cognition, and brings together contributions from psychologists and researchers in the field of cognitive science. The shared platform of this work is to advocate a dynamical systems approach to cognition. Several aspects of this approach are considered here: chaos theory, artificial intelligence and Alife models, catastrophe theory and, most importantly, self-organization theory or synergetics. The application of nonlinear systems theory to cognitive science in general, and to cognitive psychology in particular, is a growing field that has gained further momentum thanks to new contributions from the science of robotics. The recent development in cognitive science towards an account of embodiment, together with the general approach of complexity theory and dynamics, will have a major impact on our psychological understanding of reasoning, thinking and behavior.

Encyclopedia of Cardiovascular Research and Medicine

Encyclopedia of Cardiovascular Research and Medicine
Author:
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 2854
Release: 2017-11-27
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 012805154X

Encyclopedia of Cardiovascular Research and Medicine, Four Volume Set offers researchers over 200 articles covering every aspect of cardiovascular research and medicine, including fully annotated figures, abundant color illustrations and links to supplementary datasets and references. With contributions from top experts in the field, this book is the most reputable and easily searchable resource of cardiovascular-focused basic and translational content for students, researchers, clinicians and teaching faculty across the biomedical and medical sciences. The panel of authors chosen from an international board of leading scholars renders the text trustworthy, contemporary and representative of the global scientific expertise in these domains. The book's thematic structuring of sections and in-depth breakdown of topics encourages user-friendly, easily searchable chapters. Cross-references to related articles and links to further reading and references will further guide readers to a full understanding of the topics under discussion. Readers will find an unparalleled, one-stop resource exploring all major aspects of cardiovascular research and medicine. Presents comprehensive coverage of every aspect of cardiovascular medicine and research Offers readers a broad, interdisciplinary overview of the concepts in cardiovascular research and medicine with applications across biomedical research Includes reputable, foundational content on genetics, cancer, immunology, cell biology and molecular biology Provides a multi-media enriched color-illustrated text with high quality images, graphs and tables.