Panoramic optical imaging of electrical propagation in isolated heart

Optical imaging of cardiac transmembrane potential in dye-stained tissue is an emerging technique in cardiac electrophysiology. Despite its widespread application to studies of isolated hearts, it has been applied traditional ly to recording only a single view that presents the potential distribution of a fraction of the cardiac surface. This poses a significant Limitation in studying whole heart electrophysiology, particularly when large-scale ph enomena such as fibrillation and defibrillation are of interest. We have de veloped a panoramic imaging system based on a high-speed charge-coupled dev ice camera with a maximum imaging speed of 335 frames/s at 128 x 64 pixels/ frame. Our system provides one front view and two back mirror views of isol ated hearts, thus extending optical imaging capabilities to record from the entire three dimensional heart surface with only one camera. (C) 1999 Soci ety of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. [S1083-3668(99)00102-1].