Electrically Conductive Tissue Used to Treat Heart Failure

A lethal side effect of a myocardial infarction is damage caused to the myocardium that compromises the conducting pathway’s efficiency to spread the wave of depolarization. Damage to the Perkinje fibers is commonly known as heart failure, and is associated with devastating arrhythmias. Heart failure is commonly treated with a pacemaker to innervate the SA node with electrical signals

In a normal connection, the heart pace signal is created in the SA node, and delayed in the AV node so that the atria can provide the ventricles with maximal volumes of blood. Researchers at Children’s Hospital in Boston are the first to create electrically conductive tissue from a human’s non-myocardial tissue. The engineered electrically conductive tissue can potentially replace damaged heart tissue, and reconstruct the conductive pathways.

"The idea was that rather than using a pacemaker, we could create an electrical conduit to connect the atria and ventricles," says Douglas Cowan, PhD.

Upon implementation into rats, the electrically conductive tissue integrated itself with the surrounding tissue effectively. Scientists are hoping to integrate the conductive tissue engineering with pacemaker technology, so that patients can rely solely on biological tissue.

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