Overstimulation

Our heart beats thanks to a cluster of natural pacemaker cells – the sinoatrial node – in the right atrium generating electrical signals that travel through the muscle. This causes the heart muscle fibres to contract and pump. Sometimes, this system can be disrupted when the electrical transmission is interrupted, causing electrical signals to fire one after the other, creating an inefficient heart beat, which can be fatal. The electrical waves of the heartbeat have to be coordinated for an effective heartbeat to be maintained. By analysing these waves using electrocardiograms of a rabbit heart (pictured), researchers have been able to pinpoint abnormalities that help to explain why electrical waves go off-course. This mathematical model could eventually be applied to human hearts, helping doctors to better predict patients who could be at risk of suffering from electrical disturbances in the heart.

Written by Katie Panteli

Katie Panteli

Writer

Katie, a Warwick Biomed graduate, works for a science-publishing house in London with some of the world's most respected scientific minds. She's most interested in human biology, anything and everything that makes us tick.

• Image by Richard Gray and Pras Pathmanathan, US Food and Drug Administration
• School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
• Image copyright held by the photographers
• Research published in Physical Review Letters, April 2017