Does sustained atrial tachycardia impair cellular contractility and Ca2+ handling in atrial cells?
Sustained atrial tachycardia directly impairs cellular calcium handling and contractility, providing a mechanistic basis for tachycardia-induced atrial cardiomyopathy in atrial fibrillation.
Sustained atrial tachycardia causes important reductions in cellular contractility, in part by impairing cellular Ca2+ handling and decreasing systolic Ca2+ transients. These results provide direct evidence for the concept that AF induces atrial contractile dysfunction by causing a tachycardia-induced atrial cardiomyopathy.
Sun et al. (Tue,) studied this question.