Pulse: EKG-Ventricular Fibrillation or Not?

Ventricular fibrillation: Mother rotor or multiple wavelets?

Multiple Wavelets? To the Editor: In their Letter to the Editor, Drs Berenfeld, Pertsov, and Jalife1 suggest that our recent article entitled “The Distribution of Refractory Periods Influences the Dynamics of Ventricular Fibrillation”2 characterized the nature of wave organization during fibrillation. They also state that our study “provides important and useful information, particularly in reg...

Ventricular Fibrillation

The cellular events during the initiation and maintenance of ventricular fibrillation (VF) are poorly understood. We developed a nonischemic, isolated, perfused rabbit Langendorff preparation in which sustained VF could be induced by alternating current (AC) and which allowed changes in perfusate composition. We also used Na+-K+ pump inhibition (10 ,uM ouabain or K'-free perfusate) to induce VF...

Ventricular fibrillation induced by conducted sinus or supraventricular beat.

Secondary ventricular fibrillation or pulseless ventricular tachycardia during cardiac arrest and epinephrine dosing.

BACKGROUND Development of ventricular fibrillation or pulseless ventricular tachycardia after an initial rhythm of pulseless electrical activity or asystole is associated with significantly increased cardiac arrest mortality. OBJECTIVE To examine differences in epinephrine administration during cardiac arrest between patients who had a secondary ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachyca...

Calcium in atrial fibrillation - pulling the trigger or not?

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained arrhythmia disease. Current drug- and surgical-based therapies are ineffective in about 40% to 50% of AF patients; therefore, there is a great need to better understand the underlying mechanisms of this disease and identify potential therapeutic targets. In this issue of the JCI, Greiser and coworkers discovered that atrial remodeling in res...