Multicompartment model for mechanics and energetics of fibrillating ventricle.

We propose a new mechanical model of a fibrillating ventricle to interrelate ventricular mechanics and energetics during fibrillation. The model consists of multiple asynchronously contracting compartments with identical time-varying elastances but with different contraction phase lags. Pressures in all compartments are common, and volumes of all compartments change, keeping their sum constant in the model. We evaluated the mechanical behavior of each compartment by simulating this model on a personal computer. Results showed that each compartment contracts quasi-isobarically. We calculated the pressure-volume area (PVAc) of each compartment as a measure of the total mechanical energy generated by a contraction of the compartment. We found that the sum of PVAcs of all compartments agreed with the area (equivalent PVA; ePVA) surrounded by the end-systolic and end-diastolic pressure-volume relations and the isobaric line at the mean pressure of the fibrillating ventricle. We conclude that ePVA represents the total mechanical energy of the fibrillating ventricle model. The multicompartment model is useful for insight into the interrelation between ventricular mechanics and energetics during ventricular fibrillation.