Key result
Cardiac sodium and calcium channels are fundamental to cardiac excitability and rhythm, with their dysfunction underlying a significant proportion of arrhythmias.
This historical review highlights the critical ideas and pioneers in the field of cardiac sodium and calcium channels, which are fundamental to cardiac excitability and arrhythmogenesis.
Channels central to arrhythmia mechanisms; leaves open targeted therapeutic translation for future trials.
The entire concept of ion channels as molecular machines to gate ion traffic across the membrane has only recently been generally recognized, even though ion channels are found in almost all cells. Na+ and Ca2+ channels are the basis of excitability, and in the heart they generate the rhythm, coordinating and controlling cardiac contraction. Dysfunction of ion channels results in arrhythmias that underlie 20-25% of deaths in the developed world, and some arrhythmias result directly from gene defects in ion channels. This is my personal perspective on the critical ideas and the pioneers in the field of cardiac Na+ and Ca2+ channels.
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Harry A. Fozzard (2002) conducted a review in Arrhythmias. Cardiac sodium and calcium channels are fundamental to cardiac excitability and rhythm, with their dysfunction underlying a significant proportion of arrhythmias.
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