UC Irvine

Through the creation of in vitro and in silico models of discontinuous electrical propagation, data can be collected about the stress generation of sarcomeres in abnormal cardiac tissues. Diseased and malformed cardiac muscle causes improper spread of action potentials, thus inhibiting normal cardiac contractile function. Biomedical solutions to common cardiovascular problems would benefit from a reproducible model. Here, we create a model to collect contractile force data in discontinuous engineered cardiac tissues in vitro and confirm theoretical predictions about the effect of discontinuity on stress generation. The formulation of a computational model about the probability of sarcomere firing events is also discussed, together with the methods of how this model will be validated by the in vitro model. While further development and experimental testing is needed, these designs are an efficient way to measure structure-function relationships in irregular cardiac muscle.