Modeling the Cardiac Tissue Electrode Interface Using Fractional Calculus

Abstract

The tissue electrode interface is common to all forms of biopotential recording (e.g., ECG, EMG, EEG) and functional electrical stimulation (e.g., pacemaker, cochlear implant, deep brain stimulation). Conventional lumped element circuit models of electrodes can be extended by generalization of the order of differentiation through modification of the defining current-voltage relationships. Such fractional order models provide an improved description of observed bioelectrode behaviour, but recent experimental studies of cardiac tissue suggest that additional mathematical tools may be needed to describe this complex system.