David Conesa: Integration of a subcellular calcium model with cardiac action potential in human atria.

Integration of a subcellular calcium model with cardiac action potential in human atria.

Contractile force of cardiac cells depends on the calcium transient in the cytosol after receiving an external electrical stimulus. This stimulus provokes a variation in membrane potential due to ionic movement, which activates the calcium handling machinery. How the proteins on it interact among them is an important feature. Two kinds of models have been mainly developed to simulate it. On the one hand, subcellular models focusing on the dynamics of the most important elements in calcium handling as well as their spatial structure, but with a clamped membrane voltage. On the other hand, models more focused on getting a realistic membrane potential, but considering the cell as a whole without taking much into account the intracellular structure (whole-cell models). In this work, we develop and adapt a subcellular model for atrial cells and integrate it with the Grandi whole-cell model in order to be able to study local calcium dynamics coupled with a dynamical action potential.