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Mathematics and Cardiology Meet to Create Beautiful Rhythms
“Cardiac arrhythmias have interesting mathematical properties,” says NSERC researcher Dr. Leon Glass, who is an expert at applying models from the field of mathematics known as nonlinear dynamics to irregular patterns.
 With postdoctoral fellow Dr. Katsumi Tateno, Dr. Glass has developed a new method to distinguish atrial fibrillation – the most common form of cardiac arrhythmia – from a normal heart rhythm. McGill University recently licensed this work to Medtronic of Canada Ltd. for commercial development. This work may lead to better ways of monitoring patients to optimize therapy.
Dr. Glass, in collaboration with Dr. Alvin Shrier and Dr. Gil Bub at the Department of Physiology and the Centre for Nonlinear Dynamics in Physiology and Medicine at McGill University, has generated in vitro tissue culture models of the dynamics of cardiac arrhythmias which can be analyzed mathematically. These models have demonstrated the conditions that lead to the breakup of rotating spiral waves into multiple spiral wavelets – a phenomenon analogous to changes in cardiac activity associated with the onset of serious cardiac arrhythmias. More information and graphics on the spiral waves phenomenon can be found at http://www.aip.org/enews/physnews/2002/split/575-1.html.
In addition to the analysis of cardiac dynamics, Dr. Glass also studies the development of methods to model the dynamics of genetic networks. "The recent development of new tools to study gene expression will demand new mathematical methods to incorporate the huge quantities of data now available," explains Dr. Glass.
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