Describe and compare the action potentials from cardiac ventricular muscle and the sinoatrial node.
A fundamental aspect of cardiac physiology, that overall was well answered. The majority of
candidates used figures to good effect. Candidates are reminded that all figures must be correctly labelled (e.g. X and Y axis, phases of action potential, etc.). Common omissions were those that reflected an adequate depth of knowledge (e.g. some of the current flows).
One could surely produce a well-labelled figure to describe action potentials, which might look something like this (just ignore the missing horizontal axis label):
However, it may be easier to compare these things in a table:
Cell | Ventricular Myocyte | Pacemaker cell |
Resting potential | -90 mV | -60 mV |
Threshold Potential | -70 mV | - 40 mV |
Phase 4 |
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Phase 0 |
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Phase 1 |
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Phase 2 |
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Phase 3 |
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