The Heart and Cardiovascular System - Scientific Foundations (Hardcover, 2nd edition)

Now updated, revised and expanded, "The Heart and Cardiovascular System" reflects theoretical and practical advances in cardiology. The emphasis remains as it was in the First Edition: the basic scientific and clinical research endeavors that further our understanding of the cellular and molecular aspects of cardiovascular function. Bringing together the work of more than 100 investigators worldwide, it integrates accounts of their research in physiology, molecular biology, biochemistry, pharmacology and other fields with discussions on current and potential applications in clinical diagnosis and management. Part 1 provides an overview of the structure and function of the cardiovascular system, examining cardiovascular anatomy, including the ultrastructure of cardiac muscle, membrane structure, and the vessel wall; cardiovascular physiology, particularly cardiac electrophysiology, membrane transport, myocardial chemo-mechanical energy transduction, metabolic regulation and lipid metabolism; and cardiovascular pathophysiology, especially thrombosis and thrombolysis, hypertension and heart failure. The second section comprises a survey of state-of-the-art research procedures, techniques, and instrumentation. Highlighted here are key principles of receptor binding, membrane biochemistry and chemical synthesis of peptides together with cardiac research applications of magnetic resonance imaging, quantitative angiographic techniques, echocardiography, and radionuclide methods. It also looks at techniques for determining membrane and drug-membrane structures, high-performance liquid chromatographic measurement of phosphometabolites in heart and muscle, structural concepts of cardiac proteins and methods for their study and digital computer analysis of cardiovascular structure and function. The final section examines membrane transport, excitability, excitation-contraction coupling and contraction, coronary and collateral circulation, impedance and preload, renal abnormalities in congestive heart failure, cardiac interstitium, and cardiac mechanoreceptors. It also covers cardiac metabolism, including protein synthesis and degradation, RNA transcription in heart muscle, protein phosphorylation, developmental mechanisms and embyrology, gene expression during skeletaal and cardiac muscle development, and myocardial fatty acid metabolism. Cardiac receptors and transmitters, such as the beta-adrenergic receptor/adenylyl cyclase system, adenosine, atrial natriuretic factor, eicosanoids, the renin-angiotensin system and the kallikrenin-kinin system are discussed together with ischemia, exploring the reaction of myocardium to stress, the cellular aspects of early contractile failure in ischemia, mechanical consquences of regional myocardial ischemia, and the effect of acute ischemia on cardiac electrophysiology. Many of the Second Edition's new chapters focus on the immportant areas of molecular and cell biology, immunology, thrombosis and thrombolysis, and membrane signalling through receptors and channels. Other new chapters integrate the basic sciences in the context of specific disease processes such as heart failure, hypertension, and atherosclerosis. The chapters that appeared in the original edition have been completely rewritten for the Second Edition in many cases with the collaboration of new contributing authors.