Effects of ECG Signal Processing on the Inverse Problem of Electrocardiography

The inverse problem of electrocardiography is ill-posed. Errors in the model such as signal noise can impact the accuracy of reconstructed cardiac electrical activity. It is currently not known how sensitive the inverse problem is to signal processing techniques. To evaluate this, experimental data from a Langendorff-perfused pig heart (n=1) suspended in a human-shaped torsotank was used. Different signal processing methods were applied to torso potentials recorded from 128 electrodes embedded in the tank surface. Processing methods were divided into three categories i) high-frequency noise removal ii) baseline drift removal and iii) signal averaging, culminating in n=72 different signal sets. For each signal set, the inverse problem was solved and reconstructed signals were compared to those directly recorded by the sock around the heart. ECG signal processing methods had a dramatic effect on reconstruction accuracy. In particular, removal of baseline drift significantly impacts the magnitude of reconstructed electrograms, while the presence of high-frequency noise impacts the activation time derived from these signals (p<0.05).