Unit information: The Heart in Health & Disease in 2015/16

Unit name	The Heart in Health & Disease
Unit code	PHPH30019
Credit points	20
Level of study	H/6
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 4 (weeks 1-24)
Unit director	Dr. James
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	PHPH20009: Neurophysiology, PHPH20010: Developmental Physiology of the Specialized Cell, PHPH20008: Integrative Physiology
Co-requisites	Concepts and Skills Research Project or Grant Proposal
School/department	School of Physiology, Pharmacology & Neuroscience
Faculty	Faculty of Life Sciences

Description including Unit Aims

Students will study advanced topics in cardiac cellular physiology through a series of seminars. The topics covered will include the cellular basis to arrhythmias, excitation-contraction coupling and metabolic changes in ischaemia. The unit aims to develop an understanding of key concepts in current cardiac cellular physiology including:

• State-of-the-art techniques for investigating the molecular and cellular basis to cardiac physiology
• Ionic and genetic basis to cardiac electrophysiology
• Excitation-contraction coupling
• Cardiac electrophysiological disorders with particular reference to arrhythmia

Students will be expected to integrate this information with the systemic regulation of cardiac function

Intended Learning Outcomes

• An in-depth knowledge and critical understanding of selected aspects cardiac cellular physiology, with an ability to keep up-to-date with recent developments in the field.
• The ability to gather information from the primary scientific literature and to critically evaluate the material and appraise competing theories.
• An understanding of the experimental tools used to study myocardial physiology.

Teaching Information

Seminars

Assessment Information

The unit will be assessed through one 3-hour summative examination in May/June, which consists of two sections. In section A (50%), students will be expected to answer one essay question from a choice of 3, which will assess their knowledge and critical understanding of the field, and their ability to gather information from the primary scientific literature. In section B (50%), students will be expected to answer one multi-part compulsory question requiring data handling/data interpretation and experimental design.

Reading and References

Reviews and key references from the current scientific literature