Luke McSpadden, BS

 

My research is focused on understanding the effect of heterogeneities on electrical conduction in cardiac tissue. It is known that fibrosis of the heart creates a heterogeneous substrate which is prone to arrhythmia. I model this in vitro by creating cardiac monolayers with structural or cellular heterogeneities. Using voltage sensitive dyes and a 504 channel photodiode array, I am able to study the propagation of electrical signals through the monolayers. This allows me to understand how different heterogeneities affect conduction velocity, action potential duration, and reentry formation.

lcm12@duke.edu