The innate immune system, mediated via toll-like receptors (TLRs), represents the first line of defensive mechanisms that protects hosts from invading microbial pathogens. TLRs are a family of pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), and are pathologically activated by a set of pathogen-associated microbial patterns (PAMPs) and damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs). TLRs deliver signals via...

Heart Failure and Functional Recovery Heart failure is a leading cause of healthcare expenditures, hospitalization, and mortality in developed countries, and its burden is growing globally. With the aging of the population and increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, including hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and obesity, the current heart failure epidemic is guaranteed to significantly worse...

BACKGROUND Myocardial hibernation and stunning are characterized by depressed cardiac function in the presence of reduced or normal coronary blood flow. The underlying biochemical mechanisms are widely unknown and only limited data are available in human hearts. METHODS AND RESULTS Left ventricular transmural myocardial biopsies were obtained from normal and dysfunctional segments of patients...

BACKGROUND Rapid reperfusion of an occluded coronary artery salvages regional mechanical function, but this benefit may not be realized for hours or days because of postischemic stunning. Recovery from stunning is incompletely understood but may involve adaptive changes in heart glucose metabolism. METHODS AND RESULTS To examine whether reversible coronary occlusion produces sustained changes...

The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that abnormal intracellular calcium handling characterizes myocardial stunning. Isolated, isovolumic, buffer-perfused ferret hearts were loaded with the bioluminescent calcium indicator aequorin for simultaneous measurement of individual calcium transients and left ventricular pressure. After 15 minutes of global ischemia and 20 minutes of re...

Over the past 2 to 3 decades, several phenomena have been identified that provide powerful protection against myocardial infarction and other sequelae of ischemia/reperfusion1: myocardial hibernation that is related to stunning,2 ischemic preconditioning,3 delayed or second-window ischemic preconditioning,4 ischemic postconditioning,5 and their pharmacological recruitment. Stunning and hibernat...

AIMS Post-systolic wall thickening (PSWT) occurs after aortic valve closure. This waste of thickening does not participate in ejection. PSWT increases with myocardial ischaemia and stunning but the effects of anti-anginal drugs on PSWT during myocardial dysfunction remain unknown. The effects of two heart rate reducing agents, i.e. the beta-blocker atenolol and the selective I(f) current inhibi...

Yes – death directly due to anaesthesia is less than 1 in a few hundred thousand. However 30 day mortality and morbidity following surgery is common and much of it is cardiac. Worldwide more than 200 million adults have major non-cardiac surgical procedures annually. Millions of these patients will have a major vascular complication (vascular death, nonfatal myocardial infarction [MI], nonfatal...