Abstract
Cardiac tissue elastically deforms under an applied stress, permitting shear waves to propagate through the heart. Traditionally, this behavior has been modeled with a monodomain approach, in which the mechanical properties of the intracellular and extracellular spaces are averaged together. We consider a mechanical bidomain model of cardiac tissue in which the mechanics of the intracellular and extracellular spaces are considered individually with the two spaces coupled by a spring constant. We find two normal modes of oscillation: one in which the intracellular and extracellular spaces oscillate together (a monodomain mode) and the other in which they oscillate in opposition (a bidomain mode). These two modes have unique dispersion relationships. In the extreme approximation of equal shear moduli and mass densities of the intracellular and extracellular spaces, the dispersion in the bidomain mode depends on the spring constant, while it does not in the monodomain mode.