The heart is an electrically controlled mechanical pump – somewhat like an electric motor.  Like such a motor in ‘dynamo mode’, cardiac cells can translate mechanical events into electric current.  This Mechano-Electric Feedback is important both in the normal function of the heart, and in the context of induction and termination of arrhythmias. 

Our lab has been fortunate to enter this exciting field relatively early, linking basic research to clinical applications, developing novel techniques and concepts, and helping to advance the subject via organization of symposia, focused journal issues and editing the first textbook on Cardiac MEF (Kohl P, Sachs F and Franz MR (eds): Cardiac mechano-electric feedback and arrhythmias: from pipette to patient 2005; Saunders/Elsevier).

We have pioneered a number of novel experimental techniques (most recently, subjecting individual cardiac cells to work-loop like mechanical conditions by dynamically controlling both length and tension of the cell) and developed equipment of prospective clinical relevance, including devices for mechanical pacing/cardioversion and training devices for manual application pf pre-cordial impacts.

Current Research Programme

The lab investigates cardiac mechano-sensitivity at various levels of structural and functional integration, from ion channel to patient.  Model systems include isolated cardiac myocytes and fibroblasts, standard and patterned cell cultures grown on elastic membranes, isolated cardiac tissue, isolated heart, and patient data.  Methods range from patch clamp and calcium transient/spark measurements, to optical mapping, confocal/multi-photon microscopy, and histological work (EM, serial 3D reconstruction of cardiac tissue architecture).  We combine development of novel experimental techniques (three patents in recent years) with ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ experimentation and mathematical re-integration of data / model development.

Further information can be found at: http://MEF.physiol.ox.ac.uk

Peter Kohl