A research team at Vanderbilt University has developed an innovative optical system to simultaneously image electrical activity and metabolic properties in the same region of a heart, to study the complex mechanisms that lead to sudden cardiac arrest. Tested in animal models, the system could dramatically advance scientists' understanding of the relationship between metabolic disorders and heart rhythm disturbances in humans that can lead to cardiac arrest and death, and provide a platform for testing new treatments to prevent or stop potentially fatal irregular heartbeats, known as arrhythmias. The research is supported in part by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health. The design and use of the dual camera system is described in the Nov.1 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine. Additional support for the project has also been provided by the Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education (VIIBRE), the American Heart Association, and the Simons Center for Systems Biology at the Institute for Advanced Study. "The challenge in understanding cardiac rhythm disorders is to discern the dynamic relationship between multiple cardiac variables," said one of the coauthors of the paper and the project's principal investigator, John P. Wikswo, Ph.D., Gordon A. Cain University Professor and VIIBRE director. "This dual camera system opens up a new window for correlating metabolic and electrophysiological events, which are usually studied independently." The 11-year-old research project would have been terminated this year due to lack of funding, according to Wikswo. But a $566,000 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant from the NHLBI is enabling the 13-member research team to continue developing and testing the innovative optical system. Recovery Act funds are also allowing the team to purchase a pair of $60,000 high-speed and highly sensitive digital cameras to record the changes in the metabolic and electrical activity of isolated cardiac tissue using low-intensity fluorescent dyes under conditions associated with heart failure, ischemia, fibrillation and other pathological circumstances.
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