Pacemaker in Biological News

How to stop a new type of heart attack

... be used to modify wireless communications from a pacemaker ( New Scientist, 22 March, p 23). Doctors ... but a malicious hacker could reprogram the pacemaker to give its wearer damaging shocks, or run down ... attacks in people with photosensitive epilepsy. pacemaker users could be similarly targeted, and there are ...

'Cross fire' from the brain makes patients tremble

... therapy for Parkinson's disease. A new deep brain pacemaker is to bring cells out of the diseased mode for ... are on the right track. Their new deep brain pacemaker is to help Parkinson's patients on a large scale ... devices of this type, the Jlich deep brain pacemaker puts less strain on the patient and needs less ...

An 'attractive' man-machine interface

... mobile situations. Ingber envisions a kind of pacemaker that would involve an injection of nanoparticles ... wires, he speculates. You could also have a pacemaker for muscles in different parts of your body, or a pacemaker for producing hormones or insulin, Ingber adds. ...

Galloping and breathing at high speed

... People? For the last three years the researchers have been developing a pacemaker for the larynx. The electrical implant can be placed into the muscle or ... The researchers are part of a team looking at application for the pacemaker for humans for individuals who have laryngeal paralysis or undergo ...

Study provides insight on a common heart rhythm disorder

... sinus syndrome," the disease affects approximately one in 600 heart patients older than 65 and is responsible for 50 percent or more of the permanent pacemaker placements in the United States. While the newly discovered gene variant is rare, the study provides insight into cellular mechanisms that ...

Gene mutations in mice mimic human-like sleep disorder, UT Southwestern researchers find

... other potassium channels. These channels are common in a portion of the brain called the thalamic reticular nucleus, which is thought to act as a pacemaker during sleep, controlling slow-wave sleep the deep, restful sleep that occurs without dreams. The mutant mice slept only 50 percent to 60 percent ...

Beyond batteries: Storing power in a sheet of paper

... occurring electrolytes in human sweat, blood, and urine can be used to activate the battery device. Its a way to power a small device such as a pacemaker without introducing any harsh chemicals such as the kind that are typically found in batteries into the body, Pushparaj said. The materials ...

Slowing the racing heart

... Research how an enzyme acts on the heart's pacemaker to slow the rapid beating of the heart's ... to beat. In the human heart, one cell -- the pacemaker cell -- beats faster or slower to induce a ... we eat, sleep or exercise. "Disturbances of pacemaker control are common in heart diseases. When the ...

New mechanism underlying pain found

... brain, rhythmically similar to those generated by pacemaker cells that regulate one's heart rate. "What ... results in an increase in the activity of these pacemaker ion channels and the resulting transmission of ... for sending a specific message, and that specific pacemaker channels exist in peripheral nerves as well as in ...

UC Davis researchers move biotechnology closer to replacing electronic pacemakers

... deoxygenated blood from the body. "We were even able to create new pacemaker regions on the left atrium," Li said. According to Li, the current ... gene expression, normal muscle cells of the heart were converted into pacemaker cells by a process called transdifferentiation. Studies done two weeks ...

Keeping the body in sync -- The stability of cellular clocks

... by the coordinated action of a limited number of core clock genes. The oscillators work like this: the cell receives a signal from the master pacemaker in the hypothalamus, and then these clock genes respond by setting up concentration gradients that change in a periodic manner. The cell ...

Novel connection found between biological clock and cancer

... June 29 in Science Express, the advance electronic publication of Science, implies a protective dimension for the biological clock in addition to its pacemaker functions that play such a sweeping role in the rhythms and activities of life. "The notion that the clock regulates DNA-damage input and that ...

Bare metal stents deliver gene therapy to heart vessels with less inflammation in animal studies

... results," said Dr. Levy. Metallic implants are already widely used in medicine. Some examples are artificial joints and orthopedic pins and rods, pacemaker electrodes, and titanium tooth implants. "The results of our study may have broader implications for other diseases in which implantable medical ...

Cyberkinetics, Case to develop system to help restore extremity function

... (Functional Electrical Stimulation) FES is a method of applying low level electrical currents to the body to restore or improve function. A heart pacemaker is one example of an FES System. Another example of an FES System is one which employs an electrical current to restore movement by initiating ...

What Makes The Brain Tick, Tick, Tick: Researchers Gaining New Insights Into Brain's Internal Clock

... interval timing which involved a "pacemaker-accumulator" model. This model holds that somewhere in the brain lurks an independent biological pacemaker that regularly emits neural timing pulses or "ticks." However, more recent research by Meck and his colleagues at Duke, has led to the development of ...

Discovery clarifies role of peptide in biological clock

... but unable to synch to each other. But when Herzog and Aton added VIP to the mice cells, the synchronicity was restored, showing that VIP couples pacemaker cells and drives rhythms in slave cells. "VIP between SCN neurons is like a rubber band between the pendulums of two grandfather clocks, helping ...

UCSD team discovers specialized, rare heart stem cells in newborns

... from specific parts of the heart by simple co-exposure to other heart cells, which could augment existing surgical procedures. If the cells maintain pacemaker function when placed in the intact heart, they might serve as biological pacemakers for infants born with heart block, which could also be valuable." ...