ON TWO-DIMENSIONAL DYNAMICAL SYSTEMS ASSOCIATED WITH MEMBRANE KINETICS UNDERLYING CARDIAC ARRHYTHMIAS

Abstract

We study the orbits, stability and coexistence of orbits in the two-dimensional dynamical system introduced by Kline and Baker to model cardiac rhythmic response to periodic stimulation — as a function of (a) kinetic parameters (two amplitudes, two rate constants) and (b) stimulus period. The original paper focused mostly on the one-dimensional version of this model (one amplitude, one rate constant), whose orbits, stability properties, and bifurcations were analyzed via the theory of skew-tent (hence unimodal) maps; the principal family of orbits were so-called "n-escalators", with n a positive integer. The two-dimensional analog (motivated by experimental results) has led to the current study of continuous, piecewise smooth maps of a polygonal planar region into itself, whose dynamical behavior includes the coexistence of stable orbits. Our principal results show (1) how the amplitude parameters control which escalators can come into existence, (2) escalator bifurcation behavior as the stimulus period is lowered — leading to a "1/n bifurcation law", and (3) the existence of basins of attraction via the coexistence of three orbits (two of them stable, one unstable) at the first (largest stimulus period) bifurcation. We consider the latter result our most important, as it is conjectured to be connected with arrhythmia.