About 10 distinct potassium channels in the heart are involved in shaping the action potential. Some of the K+ channels are primarily responsible for early repolarization, whereas others drive late repolarization and still others are open throughout the cardiac cycle. Three main K+ channels drive the late repolarization of the ventricle with some redundancy, and in atria this repolarization res...

Atrial fibrillation is the commonest clinical arrhythmia, is increasing in incidence and prevalence, and is associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. The arrhythmia may be paroxysmal (self-limiting), persistent (amenable to cardioversion), or permanent. Especially in its paroxysmal form, atrial fibrillation may be initiated by rapidly firing foci, generally located in the proximal pu...

The article presents the current state of problem atrial fibrillation as most widespread cardiac rhythm disorder, occurrence which significantly worsens quality life patients and reduces their expectancy. Undoubtedly, a significant number with suffer from obesity heart failure. review reviews understanding fundamental pathogenetic mechanisms associated changes in cellular, molecular, electrophy...

New onset atrial fibrillation (AF) is the commonest complication after cardiac surgery affecting around 30% of coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) patients, up to 50% of valve surgery patients and as many as 60% of those undergoing combined valve and CABG operations. After cardiac transplantation where the native pulmonary veins are electrically separated from the donor heart atria the incidenc...

BACKGROUND The mechanisms of chronic atrial fibrillation (AF) are not well understood. We performed epicardial mapping of chronic AF in patients undergoing open heart surgery to test the hypothesis that chronic AF is due to a left atrial "driver" with a regular, short cycle length, resulting in fibrillatory conduction to the rest of the atria. METHODS AND RESULTS Nine patients with chronic AF...

BACKGROUND Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia in clinical practice. Unfortunately, the precise mechanisms and sensitive serum biomarkers of atrial remodeling in AF remain unclear. The aim of this study was to determine whether the expression of the transcription factors NF-AT3 and NF-AT4 correlate with atrial structural remodeling of atrial fibrillation and serum mar...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether I(Na) and I(CaL) are altered in function/density in right atrial (RA) cells from dogs with chronic atrial fibrillation (cAF dogs, episodes lasting at least 6 days) and whether the changes that occur differ from those in dogs with nonsustained or brief episodes of fibrillation (nAF dogs). METHODS Using whole cell voltage clamp, sodium and calcium current density ...

ing. Circulation 2007;116(Suppl. I):I-213–I-219. 115. Zacharias A, Schwann TA, Riordan CJ, Durham SJ, Shah AS, Habib RH. Obesity and risk of new-onset atrial fibrillation after cardiac surgery. Circulation 2005;112: 3247–3255. 116. Koch CG, Li L, Van Wagoner DR, Duncan AI, Gilinov AM, Blackstone EH. Red cell transfusion is associated with an increased risk for postoperative atria fibrillation. ...

OBJECTIVES The expression and distribution of connexins is abnormal in a number of cardiac diseases, including atrial fibrillation, and is believed to favor conduction slowing and arrhythmia. Here, we studied the role of atrial structural remodeling in the disorganization of gap junctions and whether redistributed connexins can form new functional junction channels. METHODS Expression of conn...