Vijay Chauhan

RESEARCH PROFILE

Vijay S. Chauhan MD FRCPC
Clinician Scientist
Division of Cardiology
University Health Network
University of Toronto

Research Profile
Ventricular tachyarrhythmias are an important mode of sudden death in patients with cardiomyopathy. Animal studies suggest that abnormal ventricular repolarization can lead to ventricular arrhythmias. In humans, the relevance of cardiac repolarization as a substrate for arrhythmogenesis is not well understood. Our laboratory is characterizing the spatiotemporal distribution of ventricular repolarization in patients with cardiomyopathy and defining the dynamic range of repolarization in response to physiologic stress that can trigger ventricular arrhythmias. The experiments involve body surface and intracardiac recordings of repolarization under varying physiological conditions. Using linear and nonlinear dynamics, several aspects of cardiac repolarization are quantified including spatiotemporal heterogeneity, restitution, memory and alternans. The knowledge gained from our experiments will provide better understanding of the pathogenesis of lethal ventricular arrhythmias in cardiomyopathic patients which may lead to the development of novel antiarrhythmic therapies.
Key Words
imaging, cardiomyopathy, ventricular arrhythmias, sudden death, repolarization
dynamics, body surface and intracardiac recordings

Personnel
Raja Selvaraj
Anandaraja Subramanian
Adrian Suszko
Peter Picton