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Sudden cardiac death resulting from fibrillation--erratic heartbeat due to electrical instability--is one of the leading causes of death in the United States. Now, researchers have discovered a fundamentally new source of that electrical instability, a development that could potentially lead to new methods for predicting and preventing life-threatening cardiac fibrillation.
Scientists have known that instabilities at the cellular level, especially variation in the duration of each electrical signal--known as an action potential--are of primary importance in creating chaotic fibrillation. By analyzing electrical signals in the hearts of an animal model, researchers have found an additional factor--the varying amplitude of the action potential--that may also cause dangerous electrical turbulence within the heart.Image credit: Food and Drug Administration
