Arrhythmia in Biological News

Studies point to novel target for treating arrhythmias

... of Clinical Investigation , could lead to novel arrhythmia treatments. "The current antiarrhythmic drugs do ... myofilament calcium sensitivity contributes to arrhythmia susceptibility. The researchers examined the ... (a particular arrhythmia). The risk for this arrhythmia was directly related to the degree of calcium ...

New mechanism for cardiac arrhythmia discovered

... when the receptor is absent or non-functioning, arrhythmia occurs. They assume that both the virus infection ... signals that control the heart beat. Cardiac arrhythmia occurs when these signals are not correctly ... the tight junctions, have not been connected to arrhythmia so far", Professor Gotthardt says. A detailed ...

Targeted drug therapy prevents exercise-induced arrhythmias

... Dutch boy bedridden for three years because of an inherited cardiac arrhythmia syndrome can now join his friends on the soccer field thanks to a ... arrhythmias in patients with a specific type of exercise or stress-induced arrhythmia disorder called CPVT. "It's potentially a breakthrough in the treatment ...

Rare disease provides clues about enzyme role in arrhythmias

... that the enzyme, calmodulin kinase II (CaM kinase II), contributes to arrhythmia in an extremely rare disease called Timothy syndrome and that inhibiting ... II is a 'missing link' that connects this calcium channel mutation to arrhythmia and possibly other problems, such as autism," said Anderson, who also ...

Enzyme doesn't act alone in atrial fibrillation

... An overactive enzyme is behind a leaky calcium channel that plays a role in the development of atrial fibrillation, which is the most common cardiac arrhythmia that is responsible for a third of all strokes. However, it doesn't act alone, say researchers at Baylor College of Medicine. The findings can be ...

MDC researchers prevent virus induced myocarditis

... Life-threatening cardiac arrhythmia can be a consequence of myocarditis an inflammation of the cardiac muscle that can be caused by the Coxsackievirus. In mice, Dr. Yu Shi, Chen Chen, ...

Common gene variants influence risk factor for sudden cardiac death

... on the electrocardiogram (EKG) performed routinely in doctors' offices. These findings could eventually help to prevent sudden cardiac death and arrhythmia by limiting the use of medications that affect QT interval in people with these variants. The QT interval is the time from the beginning of ...

Genetic risk factors identified for sudden cardiac death

... colleagues that their approach was correct and that the findings are absolutely reliable. "For clinicians, an important indicator for increased arrhythmia risk is the QT interval in the ECG," Stefan Kb explained. The QT interval describes the time span needed to send the electrical impulse into the ...

New cardiology research presented at CHEST 2008

... 2006 and 2007. Of the 75 patients who underwent lung transplant, 38 percent developed arrhythmias within 30 days of transplantation. The most common arrhythmia was atrial fibrillation, followed by atrial flutter. Researchers speculate that the donor-derived tissue (atrial cuff or pulmonary vein) is a likely ...

Story ideas from the Journal of Biological Chemistry

... at work. The drug also inhibited rat and human potassium channels expressed in a human cell line. Singh and colleagues point out that since these arrhythmia effects bypass COX-2, it is unclear if other COX-2 inhibitors would yield similar results. They also stress it is too early to speculate on human ...

Methadone even at therapeutic levels can kill

... this drug toward the occurrence of sudden cardiac death among these patients, said Sumeet Chugh, M.D., lead investigator, director of OHSUs Cardiac arrhythmia Center, and associate professor of cardiovascular medicine in the OHSU School of Medicine. The findings lend support to a growing body of ...

Biophysical Society announces 2008 International Travel Awards

... Kingdom, Key Residues Involved in Zinc and Copper Inhibition of P2x7 Receptors. R. Malathi, Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, India, arrhythmia Studies using Computational Model of Ventricular Tissue. Carlo Manno, Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientificas, Caracas, ...

Implanting embryonic cardiac cells prevents arrhythmias

... damage," Kotlikoff said. "One can envision using a patient's own cells by deriving heart cells from stem cells to improve heart function and decrease arrhythmia risk." ...

Engineered heart tissue offers insights into irregular heartbeats, defibrillator failure

... pumping chambers. In particular, they sought to understand how such arrhythmia may lead to ventricular fibrillation, in which the heart's electrical ... successful; yet in some cases, it may result in acceleration of reentrant arrhythmia instead of its termination." ...

Slowing the racing heart

... and stroke," said R. John Solaro, UIC distinguished university professor and principal investigator of the study. Current treatment of arrhythmia requires destruction of tissue surrounding a chaotic pacemaker, followed by insertion of a mechanical pacemaker that can regulate the heartbeat. ...

Performing surgery on a beating heart may be safer

... Dr. Shahzad Raja. “However, this process frequently leads to ‘whole body inflammation,?which includes complications such as brain swelling, heart arrhythmia and infections.?According to Raja, performing the surgery on the beating heart, while more technically challenging for the surgeon, keeps these side ...

Ghost protein leaves fresh tracks in the cell

... one day create therapeutic molecules to compensate for genetic lesions in diseases such as hereditary anemia, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, cardiac arrhythmia and the degenerative brain disease spinocerebellar ataxia 5. "As we learn more about mutations involving spectrin and their relationships to ...

New GI technologies improve internal organ visualization

... procedures. EUS-guided fine-needle aspiration, or removal of heart tissue for examination, was conducted in the two human patients, also showing no arrhythmia or other complications. "Our studies suggest that using a trans-esophageal process to gain access to the heart may be feasible and safe for ...

Gene variation increases SIDS risk in African Americans

... gene in five percent of SIDS deaths in African Americans. One specific variation, known as Y1103, was known to confer an eight-fold risk of cardiac arrhythmia in African-American adults with one copy. In this study, the researchers found that having two copies of Y1103 was more common in infants who died ...

Protein 'nanosprings' most resilient found in nature

... and transporters that control the beating of the heart. In 2004, Bennett's team linked mutations in the gene ankyrin-B to an inherited cardiac arrhythmia syndrome that can lead to sudden death ( http://www.dukemednews.org/news/article.php?id=9389 ). Earlier study of the atomic structure of 12 ...

NIH renews network focused on how genes influence drug responses

... (Mark Ratain, M.D., University of Chicago, and Mary V. Relling, Pharm.D., St. Jude Children's Research Hospital) Pharmacogenomics of arrhythmia Therapy --$14 million provided by NHLBI to discover the common DNA variants that determine why drugs used to treat potentially fatal irregular ...