As the majority of cardiovascular deaths are related to myocardial ischemia, it is necessary to understand the various aspects of ischemic heart disease. In this regard, it is noteworthy that ischemic heart disease is commonly associated with atherosclerosis, coronary spasm, as well as thrombosis leading to the development of arrhythmias, cardiovascular cell damage, myocardial infarction, cardiac hypertrophy and congestive heart failure. Furthermore, it is also important to appreciate various physiological, electrophysiological and biochemical processes in the normal heart if we are to understand their significance under pathological situations.
Heart Function in Health and Disease has been organized in five sections to provide an outline of a complex problem in a convenient manner. One section of this book is devoted to shedding light on the restructuring and ontogenic changes in the developing heart whereas in the next section some hypertrophic alterations due to chronic hypoxia are described. The third and fourth sections of this book are concerned with the regulation of cardiac channels as well as signal transduction mechanisms and cardiac electric field. The fifth section contains some pathophysiological events during the development of cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure. All of these areas encompass a significant body of new information that will be invaluable to those who work in the field of cardiovascular sciences, as well as those who treat people with heart disease.

Inhalt
A. The Developing Heart.- 1. Heart story: A view to the past.- 2. Postnatal growth and restructuring of mammalian hearts.- 3. Ontogenetic development of cardiac inotropic responsiveness.- B. Regulation of Cardiac Channels.- 4. Activation mechanisms of cardiac muscarinic K channels.- 5. Multiple cyclic GMP binding proteins involved in the regulation of cardiac calcium channels.- 6. Participation of the Na+-H+ exchange pathway in cardiac pathology.- 7. Phospholipase D: A new avenue to the phospholipid signalling pathways in the myocardium.- C. Cardiac Electric Field.- 8. Cardiac pacemaker activity: From single cells to modelling the heart.- 9. Physiology of the cardiac electric field.- 10. Modelling of the cardiac electrical field.- 11. The temporal behaviour of the cardiac electric field.- 12. Computer modelling of cardiac arrhythmias.- D. Heart in Chronic Hypoxia.- 13. Relationship between heart mass and hemoglobin/hematocrit at high altitude Function or fallacy.- 14. Functional assessment of the hypertrophic right ventricle in the rat heart.- 15. Chronic hypoxia-induced right ventricular enlargement: Age-dependent changes of collagenous and non-collagenous cardiac protein fractions.- 16. Sarcolemnal cation transport systems in rat hearts acclimatized to high altitude hypoxia, influence of 7-oxo-prostacyclin.- 17. Effects on the heart of two forms of chronic hypoxia.- E. Cardiac Hypertrophy and Failure.- 18. Thyroid hormones and cardiac hypertrophy.- 19. Diastolic dysfunction of the heart. Pharmacological strategies for modulating calcium sequestration of the sarcoplasmic reticulum.- 20. Conduit coronary artery structure and function.- 21. Heart failure: A disease of adaptation.- 22. Involvement of sarcolemnal Na+-K+ ATPase in the pathogenesis of heart disease.- 23.Neuroendocrine response to heart failure.- 24. Alterations of extracellular matrix in cardiac atrophy.