About 50 years ago, pioneering work initiated by Silvio Weidmann and others applied the
Hodgkin-Huxley formalism of membrane excitation to interpret the cardiac electrical activity …

Earlier studies of the initiating event of normal automaticity of the heart's pacemaker cells,
inspired by classical quantitative membrane theory, focused upon ion currents (IK, If) that …

Cardiac beating arises from the spontaneous rhythmic excitation of sinoatrial (SA) node
cells. Here we report that SA node pacemaker activity is critically dependent on …

Ion channels on the surface membrane of sinoatrial nodal pacemaker cells (SANCs) are the
proximal cause of an action potential. Each individual channel type has been thoroughly …

At the beginning of this century, debates regarding “what are the main control mechanisms
that ignite the action potential (AP) in heart pacemaker cells” dominated the …

While a diversity of cell types and distribution within the sinoatrial node and cell-cell
interactions add complexity to a complete elucidation of the heart's pacemaker function, it …

The pacemaker “funny” current (If) has been the object of detailed investigations since its
original description in sinoatrial node myocytes in the late 1970s; its role in underlying …

Recent data suggest that cardiac pacemaker cell function is determined by numerous time-,
voltage-, and Ca-dependent interactions of cell membrane electrogenic proteins (M-clock) …

Activation of the pacemaker (“funny,” If) current during diastole is the main process
underlying generation of the diastolic depolarization and spontaneous activity of cardiac …

Rhythms are common in our lives. These repetitions If's small single channel conductance (1
pS; DiFranof events over characteristic time intervals govern the cesco, 1986), low density …