Atrial signals are both: electric signals measured at the body surface (ECG, P-wave) and signals measured with catheters inside the heart (intracardiac electrograms, EGMs). Methods of biosignal analysis are aiming at uncovering diagnostic information by application of mathematical tools like feature extraction, classification and statistical analysis. The objective of modeling atrial electrophysiology with potential pathophysiological processes is to better understand supraventricular arrhythmias and to guide therapy (e.g. RF-ablation).

The combination of modeling and biosignal analysis allows to validate the models, enables a personalization of models and guides us to new algorithms of biosignal analysis with improved diagnostic value.

In this lecture I will compare virtual and measured electrograms. Special emphasis will be on electrograms of fibrotic tissue, electrograms of rotors, ectopic foci and lines of block. Open questions are: how can we characterize the atrial substrate and how can we identify complex depolarization patterns based on P-wave and multichannel electrograms?