Cardiac optical mapping – State-of-the-art and future challenges

Highlights • Cardiac optical mapping is a fluorescent imaging method to study electrical behaviour and calcium handling in the heart.• Optical mapping provides higher spatio-temporal resolution than electrode techniques, allowing unique insights into cardiac electrophysiology in health and disease from a variety of pre-clinical models.• Both transmembrane voltage and intracellular calcium dynamics can be studied with the use of appropriate fluorescent dyes.• Optical mapping has traditionally required the use of mechanical uncouplers, however computational and technical developments have lessened the requirement for these agents.• Novel fluorescent dyes have been developed to optimise spectral properties, experimental timescales, biological compatibility and fluorescence output.• The combination of these developments has made possible novel mapping experiments, including recent in vivo application of the technique.