Mathematically Modeling the Electrical Activity of the Heart: From Cell to Body Surface and Back

This book on modelling the electrical activity of the heart is an attempt to describe continuum based modelling of cardiac electrical activity from the cell level to the body surface (the forward problem), and back again (the inverse problem). Background anatomy and physiology is covered briefly to provide a suitable context for understanding the detailed modelling that is presented herein. The questions of what is mathematical modelling and why one would want to use mathematical modelling are addressed to give some perspective to the philosophy behind our approach. Our view of mathematical modelling is broad — it is not simply about obtaining a solution to a set of mathematical equations, but includes some material on aspects such as experimental and clinical validation.