Heart Rate and Rhythm : Molecular Basis, Pharmacological Modulation and Clinical Implications

This completely updated and expanded 2nd Edition provides all the information needed in order to understand the complex molecular, cellular and genetic mechanisms that underlie normal and abnormal cardiac rhythms. Its goal is to help physiologists and clinicians alike develop better preventive and treatment strategies.

The respective chapters cover a broad range of topics, including the role of specific ion channels and transporters, gap junctions, intracellular Ca2+ handling in pacemaker activity, impulse conduction, and the activity of atrial and ventricular myocardium. Special emphasis is placed on the unique electrophysiology of specialized pacemaking cells and conducting fibers. In turn, several types of inherited and acquired ventricular arrhythmias are presented in detail. Clinicians will especially appreciate the updated information on even common disorders like atrial fibrillation and their impacts on human physiology.

In closing, the book goes “one step further” and considers future prospects, e.g. novel antiarrhythmic agents and new concepts like optogenetics, in the context of heart rate regulation. Accordingly, it offers readers a solid reference guide to everything they need to know about human heart rate and rhythm.

Dr. Onkar N. Tripathi received his PhD degree in Pharmacology from King George's Medical University, Lucknow, India. From 1973-1975 he was an Alexander-von-Humboldt Research Fellow in Germany working in the electrophysiology laboratories of Wolfgang Trautwein (Homburg, Saar) and Albrecht Fleckenstein (Freiburg im Breisgau). His research interests are autonomic neural regulation of heart, cardiac cellular electrophysiology and ion channels. Until his retirement, he chaired the Cardiac Electrophysiology Division at the Central Drug Research Institute in Lucknow. 

Dr. Ursula Ravens received her MD from Albert-Ludwigs-University, Freiburg. After an internship in Berlin, she specialized in Pharmacology at University of Kiel. In 1985, she obtained a tenured position as Professor of Cardiovascular Pharmacology at the Medical Faculty of Essen University. In 1994 she did a sabbatical at the National Heart & Lung Institute of Imperial College London. She was appointed to thechair of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Medical Faculty of TU Dresden in 1997 from which she retired in 2014. Since 2016 she holds a position as senior guest professor at Institute of Experimental Cardiovascular Medicine of University Clinics Freiburg. Her research focuses on cardiac cellular electrophysiology with emphasis on antiarrhythmic drug action on ion channels and stretch-activated channels of human cardiac cells in health and disease, especially atrial fibrillation.

Dr. T. Alexander Quinn received his BSc in Physiology & Physics from McGill University and his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Columbia University in New York. He did his postdoctoral training in the Depts of Physiology, Anatomy & Genetics and Computer Science at the University of Oxford, where he was a Fulford Junior Research Fellow in Medical Sciences at Somerville College, followed by time at the National Heart & Lung Institute of Imperial College London. He was recruited to the Dept of Physiology & Biophysics at Dalhousie University, in 2013, where he is the Director of the Cardiac Autoregulation & Arrhythmias Laboratory, with a cross-appointment in the School of Biomedical Engineering. His research focuses on the regulation of cardiac electrical activity by processes that reside within the heart itself, and the role that these auto-regulatory mechanisms play in deadly arrhythmias that occur in disease and with ageing.