Key result
New mouse AV node model reproduces action potential hallmarks and simulates ionic blockade effects on pacemaking.
Why the study?
Data for computing AVN cellular electrophysiology are limited, ionic mechanisms of AVN automaticity are incompletely understood, and existing mouse models lack calcium handling.
A new computational model of the mouse atrioventricular node cell was developed, incorporating intracellular calcium handling to better simulate action potential hallmarks and ionic current blockades.
Nowadays, mathematical modeling has been one of the improvements in technologically advanced science in supporting decision-making in different healthcare scenarios. In the field of numerical modelling of heart electrophysiology, several models of action potential (AP) have been developed for cardiac chambers of different species. The atrioventricular node (AVN) acts as a subsidiary pacemaker and controls impulse conduction between the atria and ventricles. Despite its physiological importance, limited data are available for computing AVN cellular electrophysiology. Further, the ionic mechanisms underlying the automaticity of AVN myocytes are incompletely understood. Only two computational models of AVN have been developed in the last decades (one for rabbit, the other for mouse but without calcium handling). We aimed to develop a new mouse AVN model. We thus build on the preliminary AP mouse AVN model published by Marger et al., which has been updated and improved, by implementing more realistic cellular compartments and calculation of dynamics and handling of intracellular <tex>Ca²⁺</tex>. The new model reproduces almost all the AVN AP hallmarks and has been used to simulate the effects of blockade of ionic currents involved in AVN pacemaking.
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Bartolucci et al. (2021) studied Atrioventricular node cellular electrophysiology. New mouse AVN computational model was evaluated on Reproduction of AVN action potential hallmarks and simulation of ionic current blockade. A new computational model of the mouse atrioventricular node successfully reproduced action potential hallmarks and simulated the effects of ionic current blockade on pacemaking.
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