The main aim of this monograph is to provide an overview of calcium regulation in cardiac muscle cells, particularly with respect to excitation-contraction coupling and the control of cardiac contractile force. It is my hope that this book will be useful to students of the cardiovascular system and muscle at all different levels and in different disciplines (such as physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology and pathophysiology). I also hope that it will find use for those studying developmental, comparative and disease processes as well as more integrative phenomenon. I kept several goals in...

How is the heartbeat generated? What controls the strength of contraction of heart muscle? What are the links between cardiac structure and function? How does our understanding of skeletal and smooth muscle and non-muscle cells influence our thinking about force development in the heart? Are there important species differences in how contraction is regulated in the heart? How do the new molecular data fit together in understanding the heart beat? What goes wrong in ischemia, hypertrophy, and heart failure? This book paints a modern portrait' of how the heart works and in this picture the...