This review summarizes the ionic mechanisms underlying the spontaneous rhythm of mammalian sinoatrial pacemaker cells, highlighting the roles of calcium, potassium, and hyperpolarization-activated currents.
May inform sinus node models; leaves open selective current modulation for rate-related therapies.
Ionic Current in Sinoatrial Node Cells. In this article, we report our current understanding of ionic mechanisms of the spontaneous rhythm of the mammalian sinoatrial pacemaker cells obtained from whole‐cell voltage clamp studies. Various ionic currents that underlie the pacemaker potential are discussed. Calcium (Ca) current, delayed‐rectifier potassium (K) current, and hyperpolarization‐activated inward current were found to be the major time‐dependent currents responsible for the pacemaker depolarization. Together with these time‐dependent currents, a time‐independent background current may also contribute to generation of pacemaker activity.
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Irisawa et al. (1991) studied this question.
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