No label defined (Q4243422)

The authors suggest that a number of pathological states of human organs result from chaotic behaviour in their activity. The examples include heart attacks, ventricular fibrillation, arterial fibrillation and epilepsy. The conclusion is that understanding the complex dynamics of nonlinear systems gives a possibility of analysis and control of these phenomena. The studies described in the paper contain such experiments as in vivo detection of chaotic dynamics in canine ventricular fibrillation, optical registration of the electrical activity from an epicardial area of the ventricles in isolated blood-perfumed canine hearts, control of isolated rabit cardiac tissue, control of arterial fibrillation in humans, use of electric fields to suppress the chaotic epilaptiform activity of the hippocampal slices. The authors understand the barriers of the application of chaos theory in clinical practice (except for arterial fibrillation where such application appears to be viable). Nevertheless, further studies may overcome the difficulties. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0997.93500].