Cardiac responses in relation to heart size.
There is a correlation between heart size and the propensity to develop and maintain fibrillation. Atrial and ventricular fibrillation is more easily induced and sustained in large than in small hearts. But other factors are at work as well, such as the ability to hibernate. The hibernator's heart has an adrenergic innervation which is different in distribution than that in nonhibernators with adrenergic nerves in the ventricles exclusively accompanying the blood vessels, thus leaving the myocardium proper without adrenergic innervation. This indicates that the risk of inhomogeneity of the electrophysiological parameters of the myocardial cells at a high sympathetic tone is less in the heart of a hibernator than in that of a nonhibernator.
D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000818:Animals; D001831:Body Temperature; D004558:Electric Stimulation; D006168:Guinea Pigs; D006321:Heart / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D006364:Hedgehogs / Q000502:physiology; D006605:Hibernation; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D010477:Perfusion; D014693:Ventricular Fibrillation / Q000503:physiopathology