ABSTRACT
Cardiac reentry is one of the important factors to induce arrhythmias. It could lead to ventricular tachycardia (VT) or even fibrillation (VF), resulting in sudden cardiac death. With the wide use of computer in the quantitative study of electrophysiology, the three-dimensional virtual heart for simulations needs to be developed imminently in computer. In this paper, numerical algorithm of the model was studied. The three-dimensional model was constructed by integrating Luo-Rudy 1991 ventricular cell model and diffusion equation. The operator splitting method was employed to solve the model. The alternate direction iterative (ADI) format and seven-point centered difference method were used for the partial differential equation. And the discrete format with second-order accuracy was taken for the boundary conditions. The results showed that the ADI format and seven-point centered difference method both could successfully figure out the membrane potential and electrical activities with good numerical stability. However, computing consumption could be greatly reduced with the ADI format, implying that the ADI method with large time step was more powerful in numerical simulations.