Slack Myocardium: A New Concept of Myocardial Function

Journal of Clinical and Basic Cardiology 2006; 9 (1-4): 15-18

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Keywords: Echokardiographie,  Myokard,  Physiologie,  diastole,  echocardiography,  myocardium,  physiology,  titin

An increasing body of recent research at the molecular and cellular levels suggests that myocardial cells exhibit a transitional "slack" stage during the cardiac cycle when the sarcolemmal membrane and intracellular skeleton largely formed by the protein, titin, are neither stretched nor compressed, therefore being at rest. This article bridges this knowledge with clinical physiology by extrapolating molecular and cellular concepts with the idea of a "slack myocardium" as a physiological stage of cardiac cycle. Introduction of this term and incorporation of the concept in future research may help to explain a range of recent clinical studies and open new directions for future research and experimental work in cardiac physiology.