To prevent sudden cardiac death, predicting where in the cardiac system an order-disorder phase transition into ventricular fibrillation begins is as important as when it begins. We present a computationally efficient, information-theoretic approach to predicting the locations of wavebreaks that initiate fibrillation in a cardiac system where the order-disorder behavior is controlled by one single driving component, mimicking electrical misfirings from the pulmonary veins or the Purkinje fibers. Communication analysis between the driving component and each components of the system reveals that the combination of channel capacity and transfer entropy helps locate the wavebreaks. Application of this approach could have relevance not only to interventional therapies to target the cardiac components to prevent sudden death, but also to a wide range of systems to mitigate or prevent the imminent order-disorder phase transition
To prevent sudden cardiac death, predicting where in the cardiac system an order-disorder phase transition into ventricular fibrillation begins is as important as when it begins. We present a computationally efficient, information-theoretic approach to predicting the locations of wavebreaks that initiate fibrillation in a cardiac system where the order-disorder behavior is controlled by a single driving component, mimicking electrical misfiring from the pulmonary veins or the Purkinje fibers. Communication analysis between the driving component and each component of the system reveals that channel capacity, mutual information and transfer entropy can locate the wavebreaks. This approach is applicable to interventional therapies to prevent sudden death, as well as to a wide range of systems to mitigate or prevent imminent phase transitions.
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