Simulação de miócito único via acoplamento de modelos massa-mola e eletromecânico

Abstract

The synchronous and proper contraction of cardiomyocytes is essential for the correct function of the whole heart. Computational models of a cardiac cell may spam multiple cellular sub-components, scales, and physics. As a result, they are usually computationally expensive. This work proposes a low-cost model to simulate the cardiac myocyte’s electromechanics. The modeling of action potential and active force is performed via a system of six ordinary differential equations. Cardiac myocyte’s deformation that considers details of its geometry is captured using a mass-spring system. The mathematical model is integrated in time using Verlet’s method to obtain the position, velocity, and acceleration of each discretized point of the single cardiac myocyte. Our numerical results show that the obtained action potential, contraction, and deformation reproduces very well physiological data. Therefore, the low-cost mathematical model proposed here can be used as an essential tool for the correct characterization of cardiac electromechanics