A simulation study on the effect of antiarrhythmic drugs during myocardial infarction

Cuiping Liang1, Cunjin Luo2, Qince Li3, Jun Liu3, Suiping Jiang4
1Beijing Institute of Computer Technology and Application, 2University of Essex, 3Harbin Institute of Technology, 4Beijng


Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases can lead to sudden cardiac death, most of which were caused by arrhythmias induced by myocardial infarction (MI). However, current simulation researches mainly focus on the effect of myocardial fibrosis on wave propagation in tissues, and few studies gave attention to antiarrhythmic drugs for the treatment of MI. Therefore, the aim of this study is to simulate the therapeutic effect of common antiarrhythmic drugs. Firstly, this paper constructed the human ventricular cell model in MI based on the TP06 model according to the experimental data. Then, the single-cell model was remodeled by adding the change of ion currents after drug action. We simulated the therapeutic effects of the two drugs (telmisartan and nifedipine) at different concentrations, and compared the changes of parameters (APA, APD, RP, dV/dtmax) before and after the drug action. At the same time, the co-action of the two drugs were simulated on the cell model in MI. The simulation results showed INa agonist telmisartan could increase the maximum depolarization rate of cells in MI, but the drug had no effect on APD. On the contrary, ICaL blocker nifedipine mainly affected the APD of myocardial cells and had no effect on the depolarization stage. Under the combined action of the two drugs, APA, RP and APD of myocardial cells in MI basically returned to normal values, and dV/dtmax returned to 85% of the normal value. Although at present, there are no drugs that only act on these two targets (INa and ICaL), new antiarrhythmic drugs acting on these two targets can be designed to treat MI diseases in the future.