The mathematics of a heart beat could save lives

What we perceive as the beating of our heart is actually the co-ordinated action of more than a billion muscle cells. Most of the time, only the muscle cells from the larger heart chambers contract and relax. But when the heart needs to work harder it relies on back-up from the atrial muscle cells deep within the smaller chambers (atria) of the heart. The health of these 'high-performance' atrial cells relies on specific concentrations of cellular calcium. Now, for the first time, scientists at The University of Nottingham have produced a mathematical model of calcium activity within the atrial heart cell which will significantly improve our chances of treating heart disease and stroke. This break-through, which takes scientists into a world of cell activity currently beyond the scope of imaging technology, has just been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Rüdiger Thul , a lecturer in applied mathematics in the School of Mathematical Sciences , said: "This new model provides clinically relevant insights into the initiation and propagation of sub-cellular calcium signals.