Table of Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Part I: Building blocks of fibrillation 1
Excitation and propagation 1
Source-sink relationships 2
What determines source-sink balance? 3
Propagation and reentry 4
Requirements for reentry 4
What makes a circuit? 6
Source-sink balance and rotors 6
Wave length 8
Wave length, path length, and reentry 9
Restitution 10
Initiating reentry 11
Part II: Atrial fibrillation mechanisms 21
The evolution of current concepts 21
The mass hypothesis of atrial fibrillation 30
Principles of propagation: Implications for fibrillation 32
Focal rotors 52
Micro‐reentry 55
Fibrillatory conduction or multi‐wavelet reentry? 66
Location of atrial fibrillation drivers 76
Principles of propagation: Driver interactions in fibrillation 87
Part III: Working with incomplete information 93
Cardiac mapping 93
Sample density and atrial fibrillation 115
What should we do with the patient who comes to the lab tomorrow? Putting it all together (without “it all”) 128
Putting it all together: Atrial fibrillation in three questions 132
Appendix A: Calculating probability in a random walk 135
Appendix B: Dominant frequency analysis 137
Appendix C: A stupid idea, but a learning opportunity 143
References 149
Index 161