Modeling Pharmacology in Cardiac Myocytes

Cardiac myocytes are non-neural cells that possess the capacity to propagate regenerative depolarizing potentials. This allows them to coordinate the exquisite timing necessary to orchestrate millions of these individual muscle cells to generate a heartbeat. Abnormalities of cardiac conduction and cardiac electrophysiology are central to many disease processes and account for significant morbidity and mortality. Several of the various pharmacologic therapies used in clinical cardiology to treat those aberrations modulate the ionic conductances that generate the cardiac action potential. This project uses electrophysical models of cardiac myoctes in order to study the effects of pharmacologic intervention.