Theoretical and experimental study of sawtooth effect in isolated cardiac cell-pairs.
BACKGROUND
The question of how a defibrillation shock affects the myocardium far (> approximately 1 mm; the space constant of continuum tissue models) from the electrode is not fully understood. According to a long-standing, yet to be verified, hypothesis, the relatively high-resistance intercellular gap junctions may help in coupling the shock effect to the distant myocardium by redistributing the defibrillation current and creating a sawtooth pattern of polarization in which every cell undergoes hyperpolarization and depolarization. The goal of this study was to conduct an in-depth theoretical and experimental investigation of the sawtooth effect in the simplest coupled system, that of an isolated cell-pair.


RESULTS
Theoretically, we present a relationship between sawtooth amplitude (STA) and junctional resistance (Rj), and show that, in a cell-pair with two cells of different lengths, the sawtooth effect may not necessarily appear as a reversal in polarization across the junction when Rj is below a critical value. Experimentally, we optically mapped transmembrane potential responses along the lengths of enzymatically isolated guinea pig cell-pairs at 10- or 17-microm resolution, and estimated STA as the magnitude of discontinuity in responses at the intercellular junction. From 14 cell-pairs, STA was estimated to be approximately 11 mV for a nominal 10 V/cm field. Based on our theoretical results, this value corresponds to an Rj of approximately 18 Mohms.


CONCLUSIONS
The intercellular junction induces a measurable sawtooth effect in the simplest system of an isolated cell-pair. An accounting for the sawtooth effect might be essential for understanding field-tissue interaction far from the electrode and to accurately predict tissue response during field stimulation.
Sharma
V
V
Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21205, USA.
Tung
L
L
D000818:Animals; D004558:Electric Stimulation; D022062:Electrophysiologic Techniques, Cardiac; D006168:Guinea Pigs; D006329:Heart Conduction System / Q000502:physiology; D006352:Heart Ventricles / Q000166:cytology*; D007365:Intercellular Junctions / Q000502:physiology*; D023421:Models, Animal; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D016276:Ventricular Function