Year: 2002
Type: other
Abstract: This book represents the third stage of a long tradition of publishing critical essays on mechanisms underlying normal and abnormal physiology of the heart, beginning with the first volume on the heart in 1962, and continuing with the second volume in 1979. These earlier volumes continue to serve as invaluable resources for tracing the origins and evolution of modern physiological thought, but since 1979 there has been a revolution in scientific methods, greatly expanding our understanding of cardiac function. With the extraordinary growth of biological science that overlaps the heart, the boundaries between physiology and other biological disciplines has diminished or vanished. Realizing this, we chose to cover three areas in this volume: cardiac structure, cardiac muscle contraction, and cardiac electrophysiology. Studies in these three areas have made seminal contributions to science broadly, yet they remain critical properties of the heart. The distinguished scientists who have contributed to this volume lead the way into the new millennium of physiological research. Our great opportunity is to resolve the function of the protein products of our 30,000 genes, and that promises extraordinary advances in the understanding of normal and pathological physiology of the heart. Contraction is the central function of the heart as a pump. Three great advances in our study of cardiac contraction have been the cloning, and in some cases the structural determination, of the contractile proteins and the regulators of intracellular calcium; optical methods to monitor intracellular calcium; and single-molecule studies of the biophysics of molecular motors. This splendid field is developed in six chapters by Walker, Solaro, Bers, Hryshko, Moss and Buck, and Tada and Toyofuko, extending from the molecular events in chemical-mechanical transduction to intracellular calcium cycling. Because the contractile system represents prime targets for therapeutic approaches to heart failure, two additional chapters by Covell and Ross and by Katz integrate the contractile system into whole heart function in health and disease. Cardiac electrophysiology has also flourished in the new era of molecular science, benefitting from single-channel recording and the cloning and transgenic knockout of many important ion channels, which in several instances were first discovered in heart muscle. Stimulated by the recent discovery of ion channel defects in several genetic arrhythmic syndromes, we examine the electrical system in nine chapters. Spray, Suadicani, Srinivas, Gutstein, and Fishman, Heath, Gingrich and Kass, Nerbonne, Hiraoka, Antzelevitch and Dumaine, and Hanck, Martin, Tytgat and Ulens present the structure and function of the full array of cardiac ion channels, their modulation, and their cardiac expression patterns, including gap junctions, sodium, calcium, and potassium channels, and the recently cloned T-type calcium channels and pacemaker channels. A complete model of the interaction of these channels in the action potential is presented by Rudy. The electrical processes underlying normal and abnormal conduction and arrhythmias are elegantly discussed by Kléber, Janse and Fast and by Makielski and Fozzard. This field continues to provide leadership to electrophysiology in general, and it is finally becoming central to our understanding of arrhythmogenesis and to rational drug design. Cardiac function is uniquely determined by cardiac structure and development. Four chapters by Goldstein and Schroeter, Anversa and Olivetti, Spyer, and Page, Iida and Doyle describe in detail cardiac ultrastructure, cardiac development, vagal nerves in the heart and their function, and the remarkable structures called caveolae. Through the preparation of this volume we have focused on biology that is unique to the heart, while also placing the work in its full biological context. We chose distinguished authors who have a long history of special interest in cardiac function. To accompany their chapters, they have selected references that can lead the reader back to more general biology or on to more specialized cardiac science. The chapters are directed to the graduate student and postdoctoral fellow, as well as to the mature scientist interested in the heart. They will also undoubtedly be of interest to those presently working in this field. The editors thank the Publications Committee of the American Physiological Society and the staff of Oxford University Press for their patience and continued support during the development of this book. We give special thanks to the authors of these chapters for their long hours of work in preparing their manuscripts.
Source: Comprehensive physiology
Authors: Ernest Page, Harry A. Fozzard, R. John Solaro
Language: English
Subfield: Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4231925227