CONTROL OF REENTRANT ACTIVITY IN A MODEL OF MAMMALIAN ATRIAL TISSUE

We evaluate the feasibility of using resonant drift under feedback dri ven stimulation to control re-entrant excitation in atrial muscle. We simulate a two-dimensional sheet of atrial tissue, where the local kin etics are described by the Earm-Hilgemann-Noble equations for a rabbit atrial cell, and the effects of small amplitude spatially uniform for cing of the whole sheet are computed. Repetitive forcing can induce a drift of a spiral wave in the two-dimensional model, with a drift Velo city of up to 10 cm s(-1). For a 4 cm x 4 cm atrial surface this reson ant drift can move the re-entrant spiral to the inexcitable boundaries , eliminating re-entry in less than 10 a when the amplitude of the rep etitive stimulation is 10% that of the single shock defibrillation thr eshold.