IDENTIFICATION AND TREATMENT OF AUTONOMIC AND ELECTROPHYSIOLOGIC ALTERATIONS

该项目的长期目标是调查 心源性猝死的致瘤机制 冠心病和心室肥厚患者， 疾病占绝大多数的300，000年突然 我们的总体主题是， 影响细胞间通讯的心肌异常 导致电生理紊乱， 室性心律失常其中一些异常，一旦 可以纠正或修改，并相应减少 心律失常的风险。我们假设自主神经 系统是细胞间通信重要调制器， 了解它的作用将有助于深入了解 促使心脏性猝死，理解接受 心肌基质，以确定患者的风险，并进入 选择治疗方案。我们计划进行一系列的研究 自主神经支配的侵入性和非侵入性的个人与 正常心脏、冠状动脉疾病患者和 心室肥大我们计划想象交感神经和迷走神经 心肌模式使用正电子发射断层扫描。这些临床 研究将与动物实验密切相关。是 预计该项目的结果将扩大我们对 正常和异常的心脏自主神经支配如何产生或 预防心律失常和心脏性猝死。

The long-term objectives of this project are to investigate the arrhythmogenic mechanisms responsible for sudden cardiac death in patients with coronary heart disease and ventricular hypertrophy, two disorders accounting for the vast majority of the 300,000 annual sudden cardiac deaths in the U.S. Our overall theme is that structural abnormalities of the myocardium that affect cell-to-cell communication lead to electrophysiological disturbances responsible for the fatal ventricular tachyarrhythmia. Some of these abnormalities, once identified, can be corrected or modified, with a corresponding decrease in the risk of arrhythmia. We hypothesize that the autonomic nervous system is an important modulator of cell-to-cell communication and that understanding its role will provide insight into the events that precipitate sudden cardiac death, into understanding the receptive myocardial substrate, into identifying the patients at risk, and into selecting therapeutic options. We plan a series of studies investigating autonomic innervation invasively and noninvasively in individuals with normal hearts, those with coronary artery disease and patients with ventricular hypertrophy. We plan to image sympathetic and vagal myocardial patterns using positron emission tomography. These clinical studies will be tied very closely with the animal experiments. It is anticipated that the result of this project will expand our knowledge of how normal and abnormal autonomic cardiac innervation produces or prevents cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death.