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Carvedilol tweaks calcium release to ease arrhythmias

Nature Medicine volume 17, pages 923–924 (2011)Cite this article

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Spontaneous calcium release from intracellular stores can trigger irregular heart beats and sudden death. A new study shows that the heart failure drug carvedilol prevents irregular heart beats by a unique action on calcium release channels (pages 1003–1009).

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Figure 1: During physiological excitation-contraction coupling in the ventricle of the heart, RyR calcium release channels are only activated when calcium enters the cell during the action potential.

Renee Lucas

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  1. Björn C. Knollmann is at the Division of Clinical Pharmacology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.,

    Björn C Knollmann

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  1. Björn C Knollmann
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Correspondence to Björn C Knollmann.

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Knollmann, B. Carvedilol tweaks calcium release to ease arrhythmias. Nat Med 17, 923–924 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.2441

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