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Excitable cells

jenevoldsen.com

1–10 of 51 posts

Re: Excitable cells

#6
As someone who lives with this reality moment to moment (thanks to a deeply bridged LAD coronary artery) it is interesting to see a visual representation of these effects.

Re: Excitable cells

#7
post #5

Excellent article! Well written and the animations make it so much easier to understand. However I was unable to get the loops to go.

I was able to do it by clicking in a few places in quick succession evenly spread out.

Re: Excitable cells

#8
post #7
post #5

Excellent article! Well written and the animations make it so much easier to understand. However I was unable to get the loops to go.

I was able to do it by clicking in a few places in quick succession evenly spread out.

Try clicking in one place repeatadly and adjust clicks slightly to always go next to the fastest refractory cell possible. This works like a charm to induce arrhytmia

Re: Excitable cells

#9
Exciting simulations! :) And an excellent explanation.

From time to time I get episodes of sudden tachycardia¹. It's a very strange feeling: one second everything is fine, the next my heart jumps in my throat and starts beating at 230 bpm (not a typo). After a while, just as quickly as it came, the tachycardia goes away and I'm back at whatever HR I was before the trigger. If it doesn't go away by itself, breathing in deep and holding my breath typically does the trick. It's like a light switch! A bit scary, but also very fascinating.

Thanks for explaining so well what goes on "under the hood"!

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paroxysmal_supraventricular_ta..., I believe.

Re: Excitable cells

#10
post #5

Excellent article! Well written and the animations make it so much easier to understand. However I was unable to get the loops to go.

I was able to consistently start a loop in one click by clicking on the edge between grey and white (slow and fast refractory) cells ASAP after a normal beat.

If I'm fast enough, the wave can't spread to the grey cells so it only goes in direction around the red cells and starts a loop.

(But you can't do this on the first image with a Defibrillate! button because there are no slow cells.)

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