Spatial Correlation Communities in Panoramic Optical Mapping

Estela Sánchez-Carballo1, Francisco-Manuel Melgarejo-Meseguer2, Jimena Gabriela Siles Paredes3, Saleem Ullah4, Angélica Drielly Quadros5, Joao Salinet6, Jose Luis Rojo-Alvarez2
1Department of Signal Theory and Communications, Telematics and Computing Systems, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, 2Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, 3Graduate Program in Biotechnoscience, Federal University of ABC, 4Center for Engineering, modelling and applied social sciences (CECS), Federal University of ABC (UFABC), 5UFABC, 6HEartLab, Federal University of ABC


Abstract

Panoramic optical mapping provides rich spatiotemporal information on cardiac electrical activity and is becoming a key tool for studying arrhythmogenic mechanisms in experimental models. This work proposes a novel approach to exploring spatially coherent structures in optical recordings by identifying spatial correlation communities from estimated transmembrane potential dynamics. Starting from panoramic voltage-sensitive dye recordings in two Langendorff-perfused rabbit hearts, we preprocessed the optical signals to obtain segmentations of two cardiac cycles and estimated local transmembrane potentials at each pixel. A low-dimensional manifold was constructed on these multivariate signals, and a neighborhood graph was built to capture local temporal similarities. Louvain community detection on this graph yielded spatially coherent clusters that mapped back to connected anatomical regions, naturally reflecting the spatial correlation patterns induced by cardiac bioelectrical propagation. Compared to classical clustering methods applied directly in the signal space, communities better preserve anatomical continuity and avoid fragmentation upon inverse projection onto the cardiac geometry. Similar patterns emerge when analyzing torso recordings from torso potentials. Rather than treating the data as isolated points, spatial correlation communities leverage the underlying dynamic structure of bioelectric signals, providing a more physiologically adapted framework for analyzing activation patterns. This method can help identify relevant regions in complex arrhythmic dynamics and complements existing analysis tools in optical mapping studies.