Acute effects of alcohol on cardiac electrophysiology and arrhythmogenesis: Insights from multiscale in silico analyses

Acute excessive ethyl alcohol (ethanol) consumption alters cardiac electrophysiology and can evoke cardiac arrhythmias, e.g., in ‘holiday heart syndrome’. Ethanol acutely modulates numerous targets in cardiomyocytes, including ion channels, calcium-handling proteins and gap junctions. However, the mechanisms underlying ethanol-induced arrhythmogenesis remain incompletely understood and difficult to study experimentally du e to the multiple electrophysiological targets involved and their potential interactions with preexisting electrophysiological or structural substrates.
Source: Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology - Category: Cytology Authors: Source Type: research