Gentle light-based treatment can treat deadly heart rhythm disorders

Gentle light-based treatment can treat deadly heart rhythm disorders
New research has found that gentle beams of light could replace the harsh electric shocks in patients reeling from a deadly heart rhythm disorders.

‘It shows for the first time experimentally that light can be used for defibrillation of cardiac arrhythmia,’ Bruegmann noted. To find out if this technique could help human patients, the Johns Hopkins team performed an analogous experiment within a detailed computer model of a human heart, one derived from MRI scans taken of a patient who had experienced a heart attackand was now at risk of arrhythmia. ‘Our simulations show that a light pulse to the heart could stop the cardiac arrhythmia in this patient,’ Patrick Boyle from Johns Hopkins University said. To do so, however, the method from the University of Bonn had to be tweaked for the human heart by using red light to stimulate the heart cells, instead of the blue light used in mice, the researchers said in the study published online in The Journal of Clinical Investigation . The blue light used in the much smaller mouse hearts was not powerful enough to fully penetrate human heart tissue. The red light, which has a longer wavelength, was more effective in the virtual human tests, Boyle explained. The findings could pave the way for a new type of implantable defibrillators. (Read: Panchakarma treatment may reduce heart disease risk)

Source: IANS

Image source: Shutterstock

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