University Researchers Work on Creation of Cardiac Mechanic Models

14:50, October 2, 2019

Scientists are involved in a research of a breakthrough heart diseases treatment technology

IBM (USA) and the joint scientific laboratory “Computer Biology and Medicine” of the Institute of Natural Sciences and Mathematics of the Ural Federal University (INSM UrFU) and the Institute of Immunology and Physiology (IIP) of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences carry out joint research projects in order to create 3D computer models of cardiac mechanics to produce better knowledge for more accurate diagnosis. Vyacheslav Guryev told more about the project during his visit to UrFU. He is an alumnus of our university, and now - the project manager of Cardioid: Cardiac Modeling Project at the IBM research center in New York.

According to Guryev’s description, detailed mathematical models that reflect the complexity of the heart structures and functioning are built based on a huge amount of data which is transferred from hospitals from all over the United States and is stored in specialized repositories.

“These are sort of ‘collections’ of patients (who went through a cardiac arrest, or a cardiac hypertrophy, or those even without heart failure), patients’ electrocardiograms, and of patients, who underwent emergency hospitalization. This is a database of digitized signals from catheters that measure pressure in various parts of the circulatory system. To understand the size of such storages, think of a university assembly hall, specifically, in the one we are now, as if it was filled from floor to the top with information storage devices,” - V. Guriev explains.

Having access to such a data “library” on the course of cardiovascular diseases and their treatment, a doctor in a few taps receives a complex 3D mathematical model of a heart, and a machine learning AI predicts disease’s course and provides recommendations on the best possible way of treatment – a therapy or a surgery. 

According to Vyacheslav Guryev, in the USA this industry is developing very rapidly and is interdisciplinary, being a combination of bioinformatics, big data processing and machine learning. The problem is that medics who lack knowledge in the field of mathematics and physics have a hard time interpreting mathematic cardiac models that are too complex for them. This circumstance puts an obstacle a large-scale introduction of those models into practical cardiology.

In this regard, in the U.S. they begin to train specialists equally competent in the domains of medicine, mathematics and physics. This is how it was for Vyacheslav Guriev, a former PhD student at the Ural State University (one of the UrFU’s predecessors before the merge), candidate of physical and mathematical sciences. During his days he thoroughly studied the course of experimental human physiology, and now he specializes in creating mathematical models of the left ventricle of the heart).

Another way to solve the problem is to switch to simplified models with fewer parameters. Medics should understand such models. At the same time, models should be applicable for the description of the heart structure, functions, pathologies and further course of diseases depiction. Together with the Guriev’s group at IBM, the creation of such models is carried out in the joint scientific laboratory “Computer Biology and Medicine” of the Institute of Natural Sciences and Mathematics of UrFU (INSM UrFU) and the Institute of Immunology and Physiology (IIP) of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

“We collaborate in combining biophysical measurements and mathematical calculations. Based on biophysical data and using differential and algebraic equations, we can model single cell functions, and the neural network automatically processes information about the cell, drawing the picture of ​​the condition of the whole heart,” adds Olga Solovyova, Head of the Laboratory, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor, Director, IIF UB RAS.

The research results are presented in the article, co-published in the ‘Frontiers in Physiology’ – a prestigious international science journal – by Russian and American colleagues.