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Excitable cells
A demonstration of how reentry tachyarrhythmias can develop in a system of excitable cells.
In reentry tachycardia, the heart is not paced by the sinus node, but instead from a group of cells that have formed a circuit, where a wave of depolarization can loop around and stimulate itself over and over. Fibrillation is a reentrant arrhythmia, but the wave of depolarization does not propagate around a fixed anatomical area, but rather meanders irregularly through the myocardium. Stimulating the system while some cells are refractory, while others are not, corresponds to an ectopic beat occurring during the T-wave of an ECG—a high-risk situation for ventricular fibrillation.
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