Atrial fibrillation substrate analysis in freely moving rats post myocardial infarction

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a progressive and difficult to treat arrhythmia. Various factors promote AF by mechanisms that are not fully elucidated and require reliable and affordable animal models. In the past, most animal studies in this field were based on demanding large animal models, but recently the utility of rodents is growing exponentially. Nevertheless, technical challenges still limit rodent AF studies, which are mostly performed ex-vivo or under deep anesthesia as a terminal procedure. Our laboratory developed a unique implantable device for atrial pacing studies in rodents in the conscious freely moving state on a long-term basis. In this presentation, I will overview the methodologies developed in my laboratory and the utility of these novel techniques to get insights on the atrial remodeling of rats with heart failure (HF) post myocardial infarction. Overall, our data support the notion that atrial pacing studies in conscious freely moving HF rats open an attractive new avenue in seek for better treatment modalities to inhibit atrial remodeling in AF patients.