Student Presenter(s): Parker Mixon, Yisrael Feman, Robert Hubley, and Jerry Jose
Faculty Mentor: Todd Cohen
School/College: Arts and Sciences, Manhattan

Cardio360 is a virtual reality (VR) teaching platform designed to enhance the understanding of multi-scale cardiac electrophysiology by medical students. Currently, our platform focuses on single-cell physiology and provides an animated 3D model of the ventricular cardiomyocyte. This model can demonstrate the cellular-level events, such as the magnitude and direction of ion currents, that occur during their respective phases of the normal action potential. Our team is in the process of expanding Cardio360 by modifying the mathematical model in order to visualize cellular-level events that can occur pathologically. Specifically, we aim to create animations that show the effects of genetic mutations, electrolyte disorders, and drugs on the action potential and associated electrocardiogram (ECG). One example would be an animation for visualizing the cellular-level events that occur in the familial sudden death condition called Brugada syndrome. In Brugada syndrome, abnormalities in the Ito current give rise to changes in the action potential and eventually predisposes the patient to a deadly arrhythmia called polymorphic ventricular tachycardia. This is just one of the many phenomena that will be shown in our immersive VR environment. With Cardio360, medical students will have an incredible tool in their arsenal of educational resources that they can use in order to better understand basic and complex cardiac electrophysiology concepts and conditions.