Cardiac function and myocardial contractility: A perspective

Cardiac work and contractility.

It has been customary to regard the heart as a pump maintaining the flow of blood, and to assess the work done by the heart from the pressure and volume of blood leaving the ventricles. While correct in physical terms, measurement of external cardiac work in this way is a poor index of the myocardial oxygen consumption which is related to the work done by the ventricular muscle. Systolic pressu...

Integrative Physiology Increasing Cardiac Contractility After Myocardial Infarction Exacerbates Cardiac Injury and Pump Dysfunction

Increasing cardiac contractility after myocardial infarction exacerbates cardiac injury and pump dysfunction.

RATIONALE Myocardial infarction (MI) leads to heart failure (HF) and premature death. The respective roles of myocyte death and depressed myocyte contractility in the induction of HF after MI have not been clearly defined and are the focus of this study. OBJECTIVES We developed a mouse model in which we could prevent depressed myocyte contractility after MI and used it to test the idea that p...

Cardiac endothelium and myocardial function 1

Endocardial endothelium and vascular endothelium of myocardial capillaries share common features as modulators of cardiac performance, rhythmicity and growth. Growing evidence suggests differences between these two cardiac endothelial cell types with regard to developmental, morphological and functional properties. A major difference probably resides in the way and extent by which these endothe...

Myocardial cell sheet therapy and cardiac function.

Heart failure (HF) is the leading cause of death in developed countries. Regenerative medicine has the potential to drastically improve treatment for advanced HF. Stem cell-based medicine has received attention as a promising candidate therapy over the past decade; however, it has not yet realized this potential in terms of reliability. The cell sheet is an innovative technology for constructin...