Nonlinear Dynamics, Fractals, Cardiac Physiology and Sudden Death

As implied by the commonly used term “clinical disorder,” there is a tendency to equate healthy function with order and disease with chaos. This correlation is more than colloquial. The theory that fibrillation represents cardiac turbulence or chaos was proposed by MOE and colleagues [1 ] and more recently by SMITH and COHEN [ 2]. The latter investigators went a step further by suggesting that ventricular fibrillation, the dysrhythmia most commonly associated with sudden cardiac death, may occur at the end of a Feigenbaum-type period-doubling sequence.

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