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UrduIn this week’s Chaos, researchers used an electrophysiological computer model of the heart’s electrical circuits to examine the effect of the applied voltage field in multiple fibrillation-defibrillation scenarios. They discovered far less energy is needed than is currently used in state-of-the-art defibrillation techniques. The authors applied an adjoint optimization method and discovered adjusting the duration and the smooth variation in time of the voltage supplied by defibrillation devices is a more efficient mechanism that reduces the energy needed to stop fibrillation by three orders of magnitude.
Tag: Arrhythmia
Polluted air, disturbed hearts: study ties air quality to cardiac health
A recent study has uncovered a significant link between chronic exposure to air pollution and an increased risk of various arrhythmias, representing a pivotal advance in environmental health research.
Is coffee bad for the heart? Author of new national guidelines explains.
Dr. Jose Joglar, the lead author of AHA’s new guidelines on diagnosing and treating irregular heartbeats, discusses how coffee affects heart health. What You Need to Know: New guidelines recently published in Circulation include material on healthy lifestyle, reducing risk, and…
Virtual drug quiets noise in heart tissue images
Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have developed a new computational approach to removing movement in images of expanding and contracting heart cells and tissues. By computationally removing movement, the algorithm mimics a drug’s action in stopping the heart, without compromising cellular structure or tissue contractility.
Repurposed drug shows promise for treating cardiac arrhythmias
In a new study published June 21, 2023, in Science Translational Medicine, researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Chicago invented a new reporting technique to monitor activity of CaMKII while screening the effects of nearly 5,000 FDA approved drugs on human cells that expressed the enzyme.
Step Forward in Gene Therapy to Treat Cause of Sudden Cardiac Arrest in Athletes
University of Utah Health scientists have corrected abnormal heart rhythms in mice, suggesting a new strategy for treating arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy, the leading cause of cardiac arrest in young athletes.
How COVID-19 Can Impact the Heart
ROCKVILLE, MD – COVID-19 infections can cause potentially life-threatening heart issues. Studies suggest that people with COVID-19 are 55% more likely to suffer a major adverse cardiovascular event, including heart attack, stroke and death, than those without COVID-19. They’re also more likely to have other heart issues, like arrhythmias (abnormal heart rhythms) and myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle).
ICD detection and treatment of arrhythmias not impacted by MRI
A cohort study of more than 600 persons with non-magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-conditional implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) found that these ICDs still appropriately treated detected tachyarrhythmias after MRI. The findings are published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
Female and male hearts respond differently to stress hormone
Female and male hearts respond differently to “fight or flight” stress hormone, according to a new UC Davis study in mice. It may help explain sex differences in arrhythmia risk.
Simulations Show Weak Electrical Pulses Could Treat Atrial and Ventricular Fibrillations
With numerical simulations, researchers have demonstrated a new way to time weak electrical pulses that can stop certain life-threatening arrhythmias. Publishing their work in Chaos, the group shows that timed pulses are successful in ending atrial and ventricular fibrillations. The study provides early evidence that one theorized approach to controlling fibrillations – adaptive deceleration pacing – can improve the performance of defibrillators.
Stroke, Clot Risk Halved in Heart Disease and Arrhythmia Patients Who Took Blood Thinners Apixaban Versus Rivaroxaban
The new study showed apixaban is superior to rivaroxaban against stroke or systemic embolism in patients with atrial fibrillation and valvular heart disease
Researchers Map Rotating Spiral Waves in Live Human Hearts
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and clinicians at Emory University School of Medicine are bringing a new understanding to these complicated conditions with the first high-resolution visualizations of stable spiral waves in human ventricles.
Spiral Wave Teleportation Theory Offers New Path to Defibrillate Hearts, Terminate Arrhythmias
Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology offer a new method to disrupt spiral waves that uses less energy and that may be less painful than traditional defibrillation.
Deadly arrhythmia trifecta: Salt, swelling, and leaky sodium channels
Cardiovascular researchers at Virginia Tech’s Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC have published a new study describing how deadly arrhythmias arise from elevated sodium levels, heart tissue irritation and swelling, and sodium channel abnormalities associated with Long QT syndrome. The scientists were the first to examine the impacts of heart tissue swelling and blood chemistry in relation to the syndrome.
High Caffeine Consumption Disrupts Heart Rhythms in Middle-aged Rats
New research finds that excess caffeine is more likely to cause irregular heart rhythms in middle aged rats than in young adult rats. The study will be presented this week at the American Physiological Society annual meeting at Experimental Biology 2022 in Philadelphia.
Heart rhythm disorders: Mayo Clinic Healthcare expert shares 5 things it’s important to know
World Heart Day is Sept. 29 – Heart rhythm disorders are one of the most common cardiac problems. Arrhythmias cause the heart to beat too fast, too slow, or irregularly. People can be born with them or develop them during their lives.
20-year Mayo Clinic study suggests return to play is manageable for athletes with most genetic heart diseases
Receiving the diagnosis of a genetic heart disease such as long QT syndrome, which can cause sudden cardiac death, has long been a game-ender for young athletes. But a 20-year study at Mayo Clinic following such athletes who were allowed to return to play suggests that the risks can be managed through a shared decision-making process. The retrospective study findings will be presented at the annual meeting of the Heart Rhythm Society on Tuesday, July 27, and simultaneously published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Northwestern Medicine First in United States to Use Live 3D Intracardiac Echo for Heart Rhythm Procedure
Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute recently became the first cardiovascular program in the United States to use the new VeriSight Pro ICE catheter during a cryoablation procedure to treat a heart arrhythmia.
Electric Signals Between Individual Cardiac Cells Regulate Heartbeat
In Biophysics Reviews, researchers provide an update on how electrical impulses in the heart travel from cell to cell. The connections between cells forming the low resistance pathway and facilitating the current flow are called gap junctions. Each consists of many channels, which are formed when specific proteins from one cell dock and fuse to the proteins from another cell. The scientists delve into the properties of gap junctions and their constituent proteins.
Stress from 2016 U.S. Presidential Election Associated with Significant Increase in Cardiac Events
A new study in the Journal of the American Heart Association is the first to show that exposure to a stressful political election is strongly associated with an increase in potentially life-threatening cardiac events.
Study Explores Coculture between Sympathetic Nervous System and Heart Muscle Cells
Article title: Functional coculture of sympathetic neurons and cardiomyocytes derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells Authors: Annika Winbo, Suganeya Ramanan, Emily Eugster, Stefan Jovinge, Jon R. Skinner, Johanna M. Montgomery From the authors: “We present data on a functional coculture between…
Morristown Medical Center’s Dr. Stephen Winters Discusses What Everyone Should Know About Atrial Fibrillation
September is National Atrial Fibrillation Month, and Stephen L. Winters, MD, director of the Cardiac Rhythm Management Program, Gagnon Cardiovascular Institute, Atlantic Health System’s Morristown Medical Center, wants the public to know some surprising facts about this increasingly common heart condition.
Study Shows Hydroxychloroquine’s Harmful Effects on Heart Rhythm
The malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which has been promoted as a potential treatment for Covid-19, is known to have potentially serious effects on heart rhythms. Now, a team of researchers has used an optical mapping system to observe exactly how the drug creates serious disturbances in the electrical signals that govern heartbeat.
Heart attack on a chip: scientists model conditions of ischemia on a microfluidic device
Researchers invented a microfluidic chip containing cardiac cells that is capable of mimicking hypoxic and other conditions following a heart attack. The chip can be used to monitor electrophysiological and molecular response of the cells to heart attack conditions in real time.
UCI researchers reveal how low oxygen levels in the heart predispose people to life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias
Low oxygen levels in the heart have long been known to produce life-threatening arrhythmias, even sudden death. Until now, it was not clear how.
New findings, in a study led by Steve A. N. Goldstein, MD, PhD, vice chancellor for Health Affairs at the University of California, Irvine, and distinguished professor in the UCI School of Medicine Departments of Pediatrics and Physiology & Biophysics, reveal the underlying mechanism for this dangerous heart disorder.
Scientists trace the molecular roots of potentially fatal heart condition
At a glance:
Research using heart cells from squirrels, mice and people identifies an evolutionary mechanism critical for heart muscle function
Gene defect that affects a protein found in the heart muscle interferes with this mechanism to cause hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a potentially fatal heart condition
Imbalance in the ratio of active and inactive protein disrupts heart muscle’s ability to contract and relax normally, interferes with heart muscle’s energy consumption
Treatment with a small-molecule drug restores proper contraction, energy consumption in human and rodent heart cells
If affirmed in subsequent studies, the results can inform therapies that could halt disease progression, help prevent common complications, including arrhythmias and heart failure