Department of Pharmacology, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY, berenfeo@mail.upstate.edu
To the Editor:
Analysis of the spatiotemporal organization of wave propagation during ventricular fibrillation (VF) can provide important clues about underlying mechanisms.1,2 Although VF may be the result of the breakup of multiple, randomly propagating wavelets,3 it may also result from rotor-generating wavefronts that break at fixed heterogeneities.4 These two apparently vastly different mechanisms are hypothesized to have different signatures in terms of VF dynamics, the latter showing, of course, more organization and stability in its patterns of wave propagation.5,6 In a recent article published in Circulation Research, Choi et al7 presented results of a study of the dynamics of VF in the Langendorff-perfused guinea pig heart. They used optical mapping and various methods of analysis, including spectral and velocity quantification, to characterize the nature of wave organization during VF. The study provides important and useful information, particularly in regard to the existence of action potential duration gradients during VF. However, some of the authors conclusions seem premature and potentially misleading and may introduce unnecessary confusion to our current understanding of VF.
For example, on the basis of their analysis of frequency components of optical data from a selected and sparse number of epicardial recording sites, Choi et al7 reach the conclusion that multiple peaks, with "no indication of a single dominant frequency" (page e53), characterize their spectra. This conclusion is not surprising given the fact that the authors used an incorrect definition of dominant frequency.5 The dominant frequency, as the frequency with the maximal power, is uniquely determined not only for
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B.-R. Choi, T. Liu, and G. Salama Letter to the Editor: Ventricular Fibrillation: Mother Rotor or Multiple Wavelets? Circ. Res., August 17, 2001; 89 (4): e30 - e30. [Full Text] [PDF] |
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