2025 Volume 77 Issue 2 Pages 127-131
Every year, cardiovascular diseases cause millions of deaths worldwide. These diseases involve complex mechanisms that are difficult to study in-vivo. To remedy this problem, we propose to develop an in-vitro heart-brain platform capable of reproducing the mechanisms involved for the control of heartbeat. The platform is based on an FPGA and is designed to operate in real-time. A biomimetic pacemaker model is implemented in the FPGA to mimic the behavior of the cells responsible for the rhythm in the heart. The FPGA is then connected to a cardiomyocyte cell culture that contracts following the stimulation of the artificial pacemaker. A microscope and optical data processing were developed to ease the experiments.
