Mathematical Model of the Electromechanical Heart Contractile System - Regulatory Subsystem Physiological Considerations

Model Structure

Computational modelling in molecular cardiology has recently focused on simulating subsets of myocardial excitation-contraction processes. As people try to improve their understanding of myocardial function, there is an increasing interest in excitation-contraction coupling and mechanical events in cardiac muscle. It is hoped that these computer simulations will also help explain the pathophysiological mechanisms of heart failure.

In their 2001 paper, Mlcek, Neumann, Kittnar and Novak concentrate on the molecular level of electromechanical events in cardiac muscle. They introduce an actomyosin subsystem accompanied by a simple regulatory subsystem involving calcium binding to troponin C (see the figure below). They performed many simulations to prove the stability of their model and they then used the simulation results to help interpret experimental and clinical data.

The complete original paper reference is cited below:

Mathematical Model of the Electromechanical Heart Contractile System - Regulatory Subsystem Physiological Considerations, M. Mlcek, J. Neumann, O. Kittnar and V. Novak, 2001, Physiological Research , 50, 425-432. (A PDF version of the article is also available on the Physiological Research journal website.) PubMed ID: 11551150

The raw CellML descriptions of the model can be downloaded in various formats as described in .

Diagram of the regulatory subsystem scheme and the actomyosin subsystem scheme.