Editorial: Recent Advances in Understanding the Basic Mechanisms of Atrial Fibrillation Using Novel Computational Approaches

Jichao Zhao, Oleg Aslanidi, Pawel Kuklik, Geoffrey Lee, Gary Tse, Steven Niederer, Edward J. Vigmond
2019 Frontiers in Physiology  
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained heart rhythm disturbance, associated with substantial morbidity and mortality (Andrade et al., 2014) . The current prevalence of AF is ∼2% of the general population worldwide and is projected to more than double in the following decades, becoming a global epidemic due to the aging population and the increasing incidence of heart failure and other comorbidities such as hypertension and diabetes (Colilla et al., 2013; Krijthe et al., 2013) .
more » ... rrent clinical treatment for AF is suboptimal. Ablation treatment for persistent and permanent AF and AF with concurrent cardiac diseases is disappointing with long term success rates being <30% for single ablation procedures (Brooks et al., 2010; Nishida and Nattel, 2014) . Furthermore, anti-arrhythmic drugs (AADs) often lose their efficacy and have side effects (Woods and Olgin, 2014). The poor clinical outcomes are primarily due to a lack of basic understanding of the AF mechanism and quantitative tools to optimize treatment strategies in a clinical setting (Haissaguerre et al., 2007; Hansen et al., 2015) . Novel computational approaches and techniques are playing an important role in our understanding and treatment of AF. Multi-scale computer models of the human atria have been used to investigate the important role of fibrosis in AF and consistently demonstrated that AF is perpetuated by the re-entrant circuits persisting in the fibrotic boundary zones (Bayer et al., 2016; Morgan et al., 2016; Vigmond et al., 2016; Zahid et al., 2016; Zhao et al., 2017) . Moreover, models have been applied to propose efficient ablation (Bayer et al., 2016) and AAD (Varela et al., 2016) treatments for AF. To improve patients outcomes, novel computational analysis-aided
doi:10.3389/fphys.2019.01065 pmid:31551796 pmcid:PMC6736575 fatcat:6qoucnypynhynnip45kh3dlsly