Spinal thought 286. We have all heard or used phrases like: “He was s..t scared” or “It scared me to death”. Well obviously if we said the latter we didn’t die, but it is actually possible to literally be scared to death according to Martin A. Samuels, chairman of the neurology department at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston. In an interview in Scientific American, January 30 2009, he said about the fight and flight response that “There is a downside to revving up your nervous system like this.” He explained: “Adrenaline from the nervous system lands on receptors of cardiac myocytes (heart-muscle cells), and this causes calcium channels in the membranes of those cells to open. Calcium ions rush into the heart cells and this causes the heart muscle to contract. If its a massive overwhelming storm of adrenaline, calcium keeps pouring into the cells and the muscle just cant relax.” “There is this specially adapted system of muscle and nerve tissue in the heart—the sinoatrial (SA) node, the atrioventricular node, and the Purkinje fibers—which sets the rhythm of the heart. If this system is overwhelmed with adrenaline, the heart can go into abnormal rhythms that are not compatible with life. If one of those is triggered, you will drop dead.”
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 07:34:16 +0000
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