To better understand the behavior of the heart, researchers and engineers look to develop models that would describe precisely how nerve conduction occurs in the heart. The potential advantage of knowing how the atrial conducts may allow scientists to develop new techniques for physicians to cure and prevent atrial arrythmias from occurring. Experimental measurements from recordings of single or multiple electrodes have provided a wealth of information but devising a way to effectively analyze this information was still lacking until recently with the research done by Dr. Craig Henriquez, in the biomedical engineering department. One could assume with the amounts of cardiovascular surgical techniques and advancement of technologies that much of how the heart beats is understood. There have been numerous computer models of atrial conduction such as the cellular automaton models by various teams such as Moe, Macchi, Kafer, Lorange, and Gulrajani.
Some models incorporate realistic membrane kinetics describing the flow of ions of nerve conduction.
Each of these techniques has added insight to particular aspects of activation of the human heart, but none of them truly demonstrate the complexity of the atrial anatomical architecture. Dr. Henriquez has developed the first membrane-based model of 3D conduction in a realistic human atrial geometry, published fairly recently in Circulation Research, vol. 87, by the American Heart Association. His model includes both the left and right atria, representations of the major atrial bundles, including the crista terminalis, pectinate muscles, lumbus of the fossa ovalis, and Bachmann's bundle, and a right-sided endocardial network of pectinate muscles. This model is a finite volume-based computer model of human atrial activation and current flow.