Simpler Mathematical Model Could Aid in Evaluation of Heart Disease

July 30, 2010 

Steven Ford (Washington State University) and colleagues have broken with past mathematical models by devising a much simple prototype to evaluate the functioning of striated heart muscle. 

A summary of their findings can be found in the article "Model Representation of the Nonlinear Step Response in Cardiac Muscle," which appeared in The Journal of General Physiology (July 26, 2010). 

Comprising only five parameters, the model may be "the best contractile system yet to integrate into multi-scale models of working hearts," according to Kenneth Campbell (University of Kentucky). 

The model represents the force response to step changes in muscle length, that is, to quick stretch and release. Its parameters deal with the rate constant by which length change–induced distortion of elastic elements is dissipated; the stiffness of the muscle's fiber; the amplitude of length-mediated recruitment of stiffness elements; the rate constant by which this length-mediated recruitment takes place; and the magnitude of the nonlinear interaction term by which distortion of elastic elements affects the number of recruited stiffness elements. 

In the article, the researchers recommend their model as an "analytic tool for routine use in studies of cardiac muscle fiber contractile function." Such model-based analysis, they wrote, "gives novel insight to the contractile behavior of cardiac muscle fibers, and it is useful for characterizing the mechanistic effects that alterations of cardiac contractile proteins have on cardiac contractile function." 

Source: The Journal of General Physiology (July 26, 2010)