AUCKLAND, New Zealand — We may be on the medical precipice of turning back time, or actually reversing the heart rhythm effects of cardiac events. A potentially game-changing “bionic” pacemaker capable of restoring the human heart’s naturally irregular beat is set to undergo trials involving heart patients in New Zealand this year.
“Currently, all pacemakers pace the heart metronomically, which means a very steady, even pace. But when you record heart rate in a healthy individual, you see it is constantly on the move,” says professor Julian Paton, a lead researcher and director of Manaaki Manawa, the Centre for Heart Research at the University of Auckland, in a university release.
Current pacemakers just can’t mimic the perfectly irregular pace of a naturally healthy human heart, Paton explains. This new version, though, may change everything. “If you analyze the frequencies within your heart rate, you find the heart rate is coupled to your breathing. It goes up on inspiration, and it goes down on expiration, and that is a natural phenomenon in all animals and humans. And we’re talking about very ancient animals that were on the planet 430 million years ago.”
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