Reconstruction of Action Potentials of Cardiac Cells from Extracellular Field Potentials

The key areas of application of systems with microelectrode arrays (MEA) are studying the mechanisms of diseases and testing the effect of drugs on the human body using “laboratory-on-a-chip” technologies based on researches of artificially grown cells. Many scientists’ efforts are directed to the processing and analysis of information received by MEA systems, helping the doctors in creating effective treatment strategies. However, field potentials (FP) of cardiac cells recorded with MEA systems in non-invasive measurements provide incomplete information for the estimation of ionic currents, compared to invasive measurements of action potentials (AP) obtained using patch-clamp technology. The research is devoted to the mathematical determination of the relationship between the signals of electrical activity of cardiomyocytes: internal AP and external FP. In this paper it is proposed a method for solving the inverse problem of the relationship between AP and FP. The equation for the transfer functions between AP and FP is obtained on the basis of field theory. The paper presents the results of AP reconstruction modeling using measured FPs, demonstrating the change in the morphology and parameters of these signals under the influence of dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO). FP signals are recorded using non-destructive electrophysiological technology based on microelectrode coaxial guides (μECG), which can be considered as a type of MEA.