Electrophysiological basis for arrhythmias caused by acute ischemia. Role of the subendocardium.

The major electrophysiological changes during the first 10 min of myocardial ischemia caused by complete obstruction of a coronary artery are a reduction in membrane potential, a decrease in action potential amplitude and upstroke velocity, and a prolongation of recovery of excitability following an action potential. Conduction velocity in the direction parallel to the long axis of myocardial fibers (VL) and in the transverse direction (VT) in normal myocardium are in the order of 40 cm/s and 20 cm/s respectively. During ischemia, conduction velocity decreases and lowest values for VL are in the order of 20 cm/s, for VT around 10 cm/s, before the ischemic tissue becomes inexcitable. Calculated dimensions of a possible re-entrant circuit in acutely ischemic myocardium (the product of refractory period and conduction velocity) are in the order of 7 to 8 cm. Re-entrant circuits of such dimensions were indeed demonstrated by simultaneous recording of 125 extracellular potentials from the epicardial surface of the ventricles during spontaneously occurring ventricular arrhythmias after coronary occlusion. Previous studies provided evidence that premature ventricular depolarization which initiate re-entry originated in the subendocardium, and the present experiments confirmed this. Destruction of the subendocardium of isolated, Langendorff perfused canine hearts, including the Purkinje system, by intracavitary application of phenol, did not, however, abolish ectopic activity during either ischemia or reperfusion, although the nature of the arrhythmias during ischemia was different from those in intact hearts. Coupling intervals of ectopic beats were longer in phenol-treated hearts than in intact hearts, but the site of origin of initial ectopic beats leading to ventricular tachycardia could not be determined. Re-entrant circuits with revolution times in the order of 340 to 400 ms accounted for the slow tachycardias observed in phenol-treated hearts. In contrast to intact hearts, these tachycardias never degenerated into ventricular fibrillation, indicating that an intact Purkinje system may be a necessary requirement for ventricular fibrillation to occur during acute, regional myocardial ischemia.