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Guest Editors: Michiko Watanabe and Robert G. Gourdie

The heart beats 2 to 3 billion times during the lifespan of the average person. Each of these muscular cycles of contraction depends on specialized cardiac tissues involved in the rhythmic generation and coordinated spread of electrical excitation. Collectively, these essential tissues are known as the cardiac pacemaking and conduction system. Since these tissues are vital for generating and synchronizing the heartbeat, their dysfunction can be a direct cause of conduction disturbance, arrhythmia and sudden cardiac death.

Beginning with Tawara, Einthoven and other pioneering workers, a wealth of information has been collected this past century on the histologic, morphologic and physiologic characteristics of specialized cardiac tissues. More recently, fueled by advances in modern biology, the cellular and molecular mechanisms governing development and function of pacemaking and conduction tissues are now starting to be understood. Questions being actively addressed include: How do the sinuatrial and atrioventricular nodes work? How is development of the His-Purkinje system orchestrated? Can bio-pacemakers be developed as an alternate to electronic pacemakers? The contents of this special issue of the Anatomical Record on The Cardiac Pacemaking and Conduction System address such questions, as well as some of the other most interesting issues and advances in the field.

These articles are provided free online by Wiley-Liss, Inc., the publishers of The Anatomical Record as a service to the scientific community.

Page updated October 27, 2004