Removal of cardiac and respiratory motion from geometric points acquired from cardiac catheter electrodes

1 . A method for processing at least one electrical signal received from a mapping catheter electrode during cardiac mapping of a patient's heart:

processing the at least one electrical signal to identify a heartbeat in the signal at a time t;

analyzing a portion of the at least one electrical signal prior to a detected heartbeat to identify a time t′ when motion of the mapping catheter electrode is at a minimum; and selecting a catheter position for the heartbeat as the position of the catheter at the time t′;

displaying, using a display device, the selected catheter position; and

for a heartbeat, searching, by a backward search module, a time window associated with a time value backward in time from t to determine a minimum time value associated with the time window.

2 . The method of claim 1 , when analyzing the portion of the at least one electrical signal comprises

calculating a velocity for the mapping catheter electrode; and identifying t′ as the time at which said velocity is at a minimum.

3 . The method of claim 2 , further comprising:

blocking one or more thresholds associated with the velocity.

4 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising

identifying t′ for a plurality of respiratory cycles; averaging t′ over the plurality of respiratory cycles; and using an average value for t′ in the catheter selection step.

5 . The method of claim 4 , further comprising:

for a respiratory cycle, searching a time window associated with a time value backward in time from a duration of a respiratory cycle.

6 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

up-sampling coordinate data.

7 . A method for at least reducing motion artifacts in electrical readings generated by a mapping catheter inserted into a patient's heart during a cardiac mapping procedure, comprising:

from positional data associated with a mapping catheter electrode, determining a motion velocity vector for the mapping catheter electrode;

from the electrical readings selecting a heartbeat that occurred at time t corresponding to a mapping catheter electrode position P;

compensating for motion of the mapping catheter electrode comprising associating a new mapping catheter electrode position with the heartbeat, wherein said new mapping catheter electrode position is selected as that position of the mapping catheter electrode determined to be free of motion artifacts; and

for a heartbeat, searching, by a backward search module, a time window associated with a time value backward in time from t to determine a minimum time value associated with the time window.

8 . The method of claim 7 , further comprising

determining the new mapping catheter electrode position to be that position of the mapping catheter electrode corresponding to that time t′ before the heartbeat at which a motion velocity vector computed for the mapping catheter electrode is determined to be at a minimum value.

9 . The method of claim 8 , further comprising

calculating several values for t′ over a plurality of cardiac cycles; and using an average of the values for t′ to determine the new mapping catheter electrode position.

10 . The method of claim 7 , further comprising:

up-sampling coordinate data.

11 . The method of claim 7 , further comprising:

blocking one or more thresholds associated with the velocity vector.

12 . The method of claim 7 , further comprising:

for a respiratory cycle, searching a time window associated with a time value backward in time from a duration of a respiratory cycle.

13 . A system for cardiac mapping, comprising:

a heartbeat detection unit to detect a heartbeat in electrical signals received from a mapping catheter electrode;

processing at least one electrical signal to identify a heartbeat in the signal at a time t;

a mapping unit to associate a spatial position with the detected heartbeat; and

a motion correction unit to selectively remap the spatial position associated with the detected heartbeat to a new spatial position corresponding to a position of the mapping catheter electrode prior to any offset due to motion; and

a backward search module to search, for a heartbeat, a time window associated with a time value backward in time from t to determine a minimum time value associated with the time window.

14 . The system of claim 13 , wherein the motion is selected from the group consisting of cardiac motion and respiratory motion.

15 . The system of claim 14 , wherein the new spatial position of the mapping catheter electrode corresponds to a time at which the mapping catheter electrode is determined to be stationary.

16 . The system of claim 15 , wherein the mapping catheter electrode is determined to be stationary when its velocity is at a minimum.

17 . The system of claim 16 , further comprising:

blocking one or more thresholds associated with the velocity.

18 . The system of claim 13 , further comprising:

up-sampling coordinate data.

19 . The system of claim 13 , further comprising:

for a respiratory cycle, searching a time window associated with a time value backward in time from a duration of a respiratory cycle.