The Effects of Electromechanical Stimulation on Myocardial Constructs
Boutin, Kyle George
2012
- Cardiovascular disease causes artery walls to thicken via the buildup of atherosclerotic plaque. This plaque buildup may block coronary arteries, causing myocardial infarctions and eventually heart failure. The most effective treatment for these problems is full heart transplant, but there are simply not enough resources to carry out this procedure for every case. Cardiac tissue engineering is a ... read morepotential treatment that solves this resource problem. Many groups have already begun to research tissue engineered myocardium. Since the myocardium tissue of the heart is influenced by mechanical stimulation from blood that fills and stretches the ventricles and electrical stimulation from the electrical conduction system of the heart, many researchers have looked at both mechanical and electrical stimulation. They have each shown improvements in the cardiac function of constructs. The combination of electrical and mechanical stimulation better mimics the environment in vivo. We believe that conditioning myocardial constructs in an environment in which combined mechanical and electrical stimulation are both present in a way that mimics the environment of the heart in vivo will improve cardiac function further. In this report, we establish that electrical stimulation has a greater positive effect on myocardial constructs than mechanical stimulation in terms of twitch force, force per cell, cell alignment, cell connectivity, and cell communication and that there is a relationship between the twitch force of a electromechanically stimulated construct and the delay time between the applied mechanical and electrical stimulation.read less
- ID:
- 5712mk094
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- tufts:UA005.019.033.00001
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