Ventricular fibrillation or VF occurs when there are uncoordinated contractions within the ventricles of the heart.

The primary cause of VF is hypoxia (lack of oxygen) to the heart muscle which causes hyperirritability in the cardiac muscle tissue. As a result, multiple muscles cells within the ventricles simultaneously fire as pacemakers causing a quivering or fibrillation that is ineffective for adequate cardiac output.

The two images above show what ventricular fibrillation will look like on a EKG rhythm strip VF can rapidly lead to heart muscle ischemia and there is a high likelihood that it will deteriorate into asystole. Ventricular fibrillation is treated using the left branch of the puslesless arrest arrest algorithm.