Action potential and contraction of heart muscle.

Current concepts of the mechanisms responsible for the cardiac action potential are reviewed, as are the relations between the electrical activity and cardiac contraction. The development of techniques allowing direct control of the membrane voltage of cardiac cells has led to a rapid increase in our understanding of the cellular basis of cardiac electrophysiology. There appear to be 8 separately identifiable ionic channels that interact to produce the distinctive cardiac action potential. These “voltage clamp” methods also provide a new approach to the study of excitation-contraction coupling in heart muscle. The application of these methods has led to several new ideas about the relation between membrane voltage and contraction. In addition to triggering contraction, the cardiac action potential plays an important role in the control of contraction, and the nature of this electrical control is examined.

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