A trial fibrillation (AF) is one of the most common arrhyth-mias, but its mechanisms remain unclear because of the complex human atrial structure and pathology of this disease. 3 and 3-dimensional (3D) structural imaging of the atria in ex vivo animal models 4 have provided a wealth of information for better understanding of AF. 1 However, these high-resolution techniques cannot currently be pe...

primary cardiac lymphoma is a rare disease which mainly found in elderly men. it is usually a b-cell non-hodgkin’s lymphoma which primarily located in the heart and may involve the pericardium. the common presentations include massive pericardial effusion and heart failure. clinical diagnosis is often delayed in these patients and prognosis is dismal. we report a case of a 70-year-old man prese...

Objectives In order to provide a pharmacological profile for some newly synthesized dihydropyridines, we investigated their effects on the isolated rat colon segments and the isolated rat atrium contractility. The tested compounds include alkyl ester analogues of nifedipine, in which the ortho-nitrophenyl group at position 4 is replaced by 2-alkylthio-1-benzyl-5-imidazolyl substituent, and nif...

It has been generally accepted that, of the five subtypes of muscarinic receptors (M(1)-M(5)), only the M(2) subtype is expressed in mammalian heart. This notion has recently been challenged by a series of reports indicating that mRNAs for some or all non-M(2) subtypes are also present in mammalian heart, in parallel with the M(2) mRNA. However, the quantities of relevant mRNAs reported to be p...

Introduction: Beat-to-beat variation in heart rate shows a complex dynamics, and this complexity is changed during systemic inflammatory response syndrome (e.g. sepsis). It is not known whether or not cardiac pacemaker dynamical rhythm is affected by sepsis. The aim of this study was to investigate heart rate dynamics of isolated heart as well as expression of pacemaker channels (HCN) in a r...

Parathyroid hormone-like protein (PLP) was originally identified from tumors associated with hypercalcemia. Recently, it has been found to be expressed in a stretch-responsive manner in several types of smooth muscle. We studied adult rat heart muscle for the presence of the PLP. Using immunohistology and the PCR, we demonstrated the presence of PLP and its mRNA in all heart chambers. Immunoele...

To evaluate the sympathetic innervation of the female diabetic heart, resting heart rate and sympathetic tone were assessed in vivo, and effect of tyramine on spontaneous beating rate, norepinephrine atrial concentrations, uptake, and release were determined in vitro in streptozotocin- (STZ-) treated rats and respective controls aged 3 months to 2 years. Resting bradycardia, decreased sympathet...

Cardiac abnormalities are common. A wide spectrum of lesions can be encountered in the child and fetus. Complex abnormalities are over-represented in prenatal series as these may be more readily recognized during routine anatomical surveys. While the diagnosis of ‘simple’ defects such as pulmonary stenosis or an isolated ventricular septal defect in an otherwise normally connected heart is usua...

To assess the influence of the autonomic nervous system upon the recovery of the normal human sinus node, the responses to overdrive pacing at multiple cycle lengths of the denervated donor heart sinus nodes of 18 human cardiac transplant recipients were compared to the responses of those 18 patients' innervated, remnant atria and of 20 control subjects with normal sinus node function. The mean...

To assess the influence of the autonomic nervous system upon the recovery of the normal human sinus node, the responses to overdrive pacing at multiple cycle lengths of the denervated donor heart sinus nodes of 18 human cardiac transplant recipients were compared to the responses of those 18 patients' innervated, remnant atria and of 20 control subjects with normal sinus node function. The mean...