Computational models of the human heart can be very useful in studying not just the basic mechanisms of heart function, but also to analyze the heart in a diseased state, and come up with methods for diagnosis and therapy.
Dr. Natalia Trayanova's Computational Cardiology Lab at the Johns Hopkins University is doing just that—her group uses mathematical models to look at cardiac function and dysfunction, examining the mechanisms behind disorders such as cardiac arrhythmias and pump dysfunction.
In a plenary lecture at the SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering in February, Dr. Trayanova described how her lab uses imaging data from clinics, such as MRIs and CT scans, to create heart models. Using detailed information from such images, the team geometrically constructs 3-D computer models by incorporating information about chemical and protein interactions as well as cardiac fiber orientation.
