Table 5.

Examples of animal models of atrial fibrillation and animal-free innovations

Species	Pathological features	Applications	Animal-free alternatives
Dog, pig, sheep, goat	Pacing induced tachycardia97,104,105	Understanding mechanisms of tachycardia-induced ion channel remodelling, therapeutic interventions to prevent electrical remodelling	Paced cell systems, immortalized myocytes
Dog, pig, sheep, goat	Electrically induced AF	Understanding the effect of stressors on electrophysiological mechanisms of AF has been extremely useful in mimicking human AF (‘AF begets AF’)97 Limitation: difficult to mimic chronic and multi-causal nature of human AF	Cell based models are not available, but in-depth phenotyping of patients with AF may offer solutions: electrical mapping, imaging, blood/tissue biomarkers, genetics
Rodents, zebrafish, Drosophila	Mono-causal AF	High reproductive rates and standardized phenotyping enable high throughput studies of genetically modified animals Limitation: difficult to mimic chronic and multi-causal nature of human AF	Human iPSC-derived atrial cardiomyocytes101 and engineered atrial-like heart tissue103 Limitation: lack of studies on chronic exposure to stressors, ageing