The therapy detects fast arrhythmia in the atrium of a rat's heart and sends a signal to a LED device placed near the heart. "The flash of light from this LED then causes the heart to generate an electric current itself to halt the arrhythmia," said lead investigator at Leiden University in the Netherlands. "This is made possible by using gene therapy to introduce specific light-sensitive proteins into the heart. This restores the heart's normal rhythm immediately and automatically," he added.
According to the researchers, this could represent a great improvement on the current way of stopping atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation is the most common heart rhythm disorder in clinical practice. The current treatment, known as cardio version, is based on administering an electric shock to the heart, which has to be done in the hospital under general anesthesia because of pain. For many…
