SFU Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology PhD candidate Alexandre Laurin has spent his summer in France at the École Polytechnique developing a 3D interactive computer model to emulate the intricate behaviours of the human heart and chest.
Laurin’s ultimate goal is to use smartphones to diagnose heart conditions, bringing the diagnosis to us.
He worked as part of the Mathematical and Mechanical Models with Data Interactions in Simulations for Medicine (M3DISIM) group, focused on applying mathematical modeling and biomedical engineering to modeling the heart.
“You need the model first to understand what’s going on, then you can build the app for a smartphone,” Laurin told SFU University Communications.
The group started with studying the mechanical properties and movements of the heart and chest, examining the bones and cartilage that comprise a chest. They then use this information to form an elementary model of the chest using simple geometric shapes.
This model allows the team to detect vibrations in the heart. As of now, their program examines the minute gaps between detected vibrations to determine which valve of the heart is opening or closing, thus completing the simulation.
His work with M3DISIM is in tandem to his work at the SFU Aerospace Physiology Lab, led by SFU professor Andrew Blaber, where he obtained the necessary seismocardiograms of a real heart to compare to the vibrations simulated by his computer model.
Despite all the hard work Laurin has put in, developing a model is just the beginning. What the program cannot detect is the underlying reason behind the vibrations. “What we don’t know is what is causing the vibration reading, so if we ever want to diagnose wrong or weird vibrations, we need to really understand the mechanical and electrical variables of each vibration,” said Laurin.
In other words, each vibration has inherent qualities that correspond to different signals and movements in the heart. Laurin’s heart app would have to detect, process, and match these vibrations to observed data to produce a diagnosis for a patient’s condition.
Laurin anticipates that it would take at least another 10 years of work developing the app to reach a final product.
While this summer internship, partially funded by a Graduate International Research Travel Award given by SFU, has come to an end with the completion of the model, he plans on returning on a second trip to fine-tune the model.
