Physics-Informed Reconstruction of Unmeasurable Cardiac Fields from Real Data: Electrocardiographic Imaging and 4D-Flow Aortic Pressure, Verified Against Known Answers, with Null Results

Two clinically decisive cardiac quantities cannot be measured where they are needed: the heart-surface potential map (measured only with an invasive electrode cage) and the intra-vascular pressure field (measured only with a catheter). Each is tied by a governing equation to a quantity measurable non-invasively, the body-surface potential and the 4D-flow velocity, so each can be reconstructed. We report a real-data-only study of this reconstruction across two distinct physics domains under one discipline: fit only real measured signals; validate against a real gold standard where one exists and against an exact analytic known-answer test where none can; and report the null results. The common methodological spine is to separate the well-posed part that data constrains from the ill-posed part that the physics forces out, and to verify every physics engine on a closed-form problem before it is applied to real data. Case 1 (electrocardiographic imaging, quasi-static volume conduction). A forward operator on the real geometry with a graph-Laplacian Tikhonov prior and a deep-ensemble node uncertainty recovers heart-surface potentials from real EDGAR experiments by an identical pipeline with no per-heart retuning, at relative error 0.54-0.65 and spatial correlation 0.72-0.85 against the measured cage, with about 90 percent of nodes inside two standard deviations, and the paced beats reconstructing better than sinus as physically expected. A full boundary-element forward operator, verified to correlation above 0.999 on an analytic concentric-sphere problem, does not beat the calibrated single-layer on the real coarse electrode geometry (dog: 0.542 vs 0.629 relative error), a null result. Case 2 (4D-flow aortic pressure, incompressible Navier-Stokes). A divergence-free velocity network denoises a real thoracic-aorta 4D-flow scan (raw divergence reduced 2.3x) and the relative pressure is forced out by the pressure-Poisson equation with the source and Neumann flux computed from the network's analytic derivatives rather than by finite differences at the lumen edge, which takes the recovered pressure from a non-physiological thousands of mmHg to a physiological 0.79 mmHg range, the same order as the clinical simplified-Bernoulli estimate (2.50 mmHg). The solve is verified to correlation 1.00 on an analytic converging duct, and its unsteady term to dw/dt correlation 0.995 on a time-varying Poiseuille flow; the momentum-residual PINN, which leaves pressure gauge-free, serves as a failed baseline. The uncertainty treatment is case-appropriate: informative and shown per node where the inverse is ill-posed, and summarized as a scalar where the denoiser makes it near-zero. The contribution is a demonstration that, with a real-data-only discipline and known-answer verification, physics-informed reconstruction recovers two clinically meaningful unmeasurable cardiac fields from the non-invasive measurements tied to them. This is a validated methodological result on real experimental data, not a clinically deployed system. Code, derived artifacts and the viewer source (MIT): https://github.com/fsantibanezleal/CAOS_RES_CardioPINN . Interactive viewer: https://cardiopinn.fasl-work.com .

Authors

Institutions

Publication Details

Journal
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Published
2026-09-18
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21508806
Primary Topic
Cardiac electrophysiology and arrhythmias
Type
preprint
Controls
|||
ALL TIME
JAN
FEB
MAR
APR
MAY
JUN
JUL
AUG
SEP
preprint

Physics-Informed Reconstruction of Unmeasurable Cardiac Fields from Real Data: Electrocardiographic Imaging and 4D-Flow Aortic Pressure, Verified Against Known Answers, with Null Results

Felipe Santibañez-Leal
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Cardiac electrophysiology and arrhythmias
preprint

Physics-Informed Reconstruction of Unmeasurable Cardiac Fields from Real Data: Electrocardiographic Imaging and 4D-Flow Aortic Pressure, Verified Against Known Answers, with Null Results

Felipe Santibañez-Leal
preprint en

Abstract

Two clinically decisive cardiac quantities cannot be measured where they are needed: the heart-surface potential map (measured only with an invasive electrode cage) and the intra-vascular pressure field (measured only with a catheter). Each is tied by a governing equation to a quantity measurable non-invasively, the body-surface potential and the 4D-flow velocity, so each can be reconstructed. We report a real-data-only study of this reconstruction across two distinct physics domains under one discipline: fit only real measured signals; validate against a real gold standard where one exists and against an exact analytic known-answer test where none can; and report the null results. The common methodological spine is to separate the well-posed part that data constrains from the ill-posed part that the physics forces out, and to verify every physics engine on a closed-form problem before it is applied to real data. Case 1 (electrocardiographic imaging, quasi-static volume conduction). A forward operator on the real geometry with a graph-Laplacian Tikhonov prior and a deep-ensemble node uncertainty recovers heart-surface potentials from real EDGAR experiments by an identical pipeline with no per-heart retuning, at relative error 0.54-0.65 and spatial correlation 0.72-0.85 against the measured cage, with about 90 percent of nodes inside two standard deviations, and the paced beats reconstructing better than sinus as physically expected. A full boundary-element forward operator, verified to correlation above 0.999 on an analytic concentric-sphere problem, does not beat the calibrated single-layer on the real coarse electrode geometry (dog: 0.542 vs 0.629 relative error), a null result. Case 2 (4D-flow aortic pressure, incompressible Navier-Stokes). A divergence-free velocity network denoises a real thoracic-aorta 4D-flow scan (raw divergence reduced 2.3x) and the relative pressure is forced out by the pressure-Poisson equation with the source and Neumann flux computed from the network's analytic derivatives rather than by finite differences at the lumen edge, which takes the recovered pressure from a non-physiological thousands of mmHg to a physiological 0.79 mmHg range, the same order as the clinical simplified-Bernoulli estimate (2.50 mmHg). The solve is verified to correlation 1.00 on an analytic converging duct, and its unsteady term to dw/dt correlation 0.995 on a time-varying Poiseuille flow; the momentum-residual PINN, which leaves pressure gauge-free, serves as a failed baseline. The uncertainty treatment is case-appropriate: informative and shown per node where the inverse is ill-posed, and summarized as a scalar where the denoiser makes it near-zero. The contribution is a demonstration that, with a real-data-only discipline and known-answer verification, physics-informed reconstruction recovers two clinically meaningful unmeasurable cardiac fields from the non-invasive measurements tied to them. This is a validated methodological result on real experimental data, not a clinically deployed system. Code, derived artifacts and the viewer source (MIT): https://github.com/fsantibanezleal/CAOS_RES_CardioPINN . Interactive viewer: https://cardiopinn.fasl-work.com .

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Open University of Cyprus (CY)
Cardiac electrophysiology and arrhythmias
AI Navigator

Ask Laika to Summarize, Analyze, and Connect papers live on the map.

Summarize Papers & Methodologies

Extract key findings, datasets, and comparative methods across publications.

Benchmark Rankings & Visual Analytics

Rank top research institutions, authors, funders, topics, and journals by Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) and paper volume with instant charts.

Connect Distant Disciplines

Bridge topological clusters on the map to find hidden collaborative intersections.