The course is intended to provide up-to-date and extended knowledge based on the latest literature for practically all medical students, especially those planning to be cardiologists or internists in order to meet a predictable future requirement of a strongly established knowledge related to the electrophysiological background and ion channel dependent pathomechanisms of severe, often lethal heart diseases and to facilitate their better understanding of the corresponding scientific literature. Their expected competent knowledge on cardiac electrophysiological mechanisms will significantly help young MDs to introduce novel, highly effective cardiopharmacological agents and/or to select optimal clinical therapeutic strategies. Via providing a detailed introspection into molecular and cellular basis of the electric activity of the heart the course is willing to offer the students an opportunity to collect an important section of these competences during their student years. During the course the motivated students may collect a comprehensive knowledge on:
· the biophysical basis of cardiac electrophysiology; the principles of operation and regulation of major cardiac ion channels
· the kinetic properties and regulation of ion currents generating cardiac action potentials; the significance of the repolarization reserve; the molecular background of substantial differences between atrial and ventricular and among various ventricular action potentials; and the basic pathomechanisms of arrhythmogenesis
· the principles of intracellular Ca2+ homeostasis in cardiomyocytes; the major mechanisms of excitation/contraction coupling; functional adaptation of the Ca2+-cycle; pathomechanisms of Ca2+-dependent and Ca2+-facilitated heart diseases and several therapeutic strategies
· common genetic disturbances leading to malfunction of cardiac ion channels
· most important experimental techniques and animal models applied in experimental cardiac electrophysiology and the human/clinical relevance of the collected data
Finally a practical demonstration (13-th week) based on the material of the lectures is organized in order to help realistic, problem-oriented application of the theoretical knowledge via jointly processing experimental data derived from a few running scientific projects.