Berenfeld Omer

My research interests are in the general field of Cardiac Electrophysiology, and more specifically the theoretical, experimental and clinical understanding of mechanisms of impulse propagation in the heart and arrhythmias. The following is a brief description of my major areas of research: 1. Dynamics of impulse propagation and reentrant activity. Under this topic I investigate the basic effects of the ionic and structural properties of the heart on the normal and abnormal propagation of its action potential. As studies demonstrated that reentrant propagation underlies some cases of cardiac arrhythmias I am using theoretical, numerical and experimental approaches to better map and understand the dynamics of such pattern of activation. 2. Mechanisms of atrial fibrillation. Great efforts are invested in characterizing the spatio-temporal properties of the cardiac impulse propagation during initiation and sustenance of atrial fibrillation. Data analysis in the time, phase and frequency domains is used for mechanistic correlation of activation patterns with the ionic and structural properties of the atrial substrate during transition from paroxysmal to persistent atrial fibrillation. Emphasis is given to technological developments enabling the translation of knowledge derived from animal and computational models into the clinical setting of patients with atrial fibrillation. 3. Biophysical mechanisms in two specific inherited cardiac diseases. Catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia and arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia/cardiomyopathy involve calcium miss-handling and non-myocytes infiltration with inter-cellular coupling disruption, respectively. My research is focusing on studying the fundamental biophysical mechanisms of arrhythmias in numerical and cell culture models of the two diseases. 4. Mapping of Cardiac Fibrillation. We study, develop and manufacture novel methods and devices to better characterize the structure and electrical function of the heart. Here we focus on optimizing existing electrical approaches to increase accuracy in invasive and non-invasive panoramic mapping of fibrillation. In addition, we are developing revolutionary photonic approaches to enable simultaneous structural and functional characterization of the heart in-vivo in patients bypassing the inherent limitations of electrical mapping devices.