• Dr.T.S.Murugesh

Auto rhythmic cells refer to the cardiac muscle cells responsible for synchronizing the contractile cells to coordinate a heart contraction. The normal pace making in the heart depends on the coordinated discharge frequency of thousands of pacemaker cells comprising the sinoatrial (SA) region. The SA node, that serves as the normal pacemaker of the heart comprises of thousands of cells whose intrinsic frequencies are not identical. The electrical activities of the various SA node cells coordinate to give rise to a single impulse by means of a complex mechanism during each cardiac cycle. The propagation of excitation within the heart involves action potential (A.P) generation by cardiac cells and its propagation in the multicellular tissue. The most contributing factor towards cardiac communication is the gap junction (GJ) where GJ conduction occurs by direct movement of ions between cells. GJs permit large areas of cardiac tissue to contract as a single unit, a functional syncytium, by synchronizing oscillations of large number of cells. It is seen that, when aggregates with different spontaneous frequencies are brought into close opposition, their activities synchronize to a common frequency. In cardiac cells many different kinds of ions interact to generate action potential that go through the heart and cause a synchronized normal contraction. The action potential from the model of a cardiac cell, specifically auto rhythmic cells of a species (rabbit) is obtained and the influence of model parameters on the intrinsic frequency of the specified auto rhythmic cell is investigated. A cell pair is formulated by coupling the SA node cells using gap junctional conductance channels with a varying frequency gradient. The synchronization issues in the cell pair are analyzed and the influence of GJ conductance magnitude in coaxing synchronization between the coupled cell pair is assessed with the aid of simulation studies.

Cardiac cells, pacemaker, Synchronization, gap junction conductance, action potential, sinoatrial node.

"ASSESSMENT OF GAP JUNCTIONAL CONDUCTANCE MAGNITUDE IN CARDIAC SYNCHRONIZATION - A COMPUTATIONAL STUDY", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.2, Issue 12, page no.258-266, December 2015, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1701041.pdf

"ASSESSMENT OF GAP JUNCTIONAL CONDUCTANCE MAGNITUDE IN CARDIAC SYNCHRONIZATION - A COMPUTATIONAL STUDY", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.2, Issue 12, page no. pp258-266, December 2015, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1701041.pdf