Cardiac Action Potentials

Students often encounter difficulties trying to understand the origin of the resting membrane potential and how it changes during the development of action potentials in neurons, skeletal muscle cells, and cardiac muscle cells. Because the resulting action potentials are key to cardiac function and the generation of the electrocardiogram, it is critical that students develop accurate mental models of the processes involved. In the second part of our three book series on electrophysiology, we have included a series of illustrations, interactive activities and animations designed to help students develop these models, thereby facilitating mastery of these important physiologic concepts.