Cardiac electrophysiological effects of citalopram in guinea pig papillary muscle comparison with clomipramine.

The effect of citalopram, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant, was studied on cardiac action potential configuration and compared with that of the tricyclic antidepressant (TCA) clomipramine. Conventional microelectrode techniques were used in right ventricular papillary muscle preparations of the guinea pig. Citalopram caused a concentration-dependent (10-100 microM) shortening of action potential duration (APD), depression of plateau and overshoot potential, and reduction of maximum velocity of depolarization (V(max)). No significant changes in resting membrane potential were observed. Similar results were obtained with clomipramine; however, reduction of V(max) and overshoot was more pronounced with clomipramine, whereas citalopram caused relatively greater shortening of APD. Effects of both drugs were partly reversible. The results indicate that the SSRI antidepressant citalopram, similarly to TCA compounds, alters cardiac action potential configuration in guinea pig ventricular muscle, probably owing to inhibition of cardiac Na(+) and Ca(2+) channels. Differences in cardiac side effects of the two drugs may be related to their different actions on cardiac action potential configuration

Azimuthal emission patterns of K+ and of K- mesons in Ni plus Ni collisions near the strangeness production threshold

Azimuthal emission patterns of K± mesons have been measured in Ni + Ni collisions with the FOPI spectrometer at a beam kinetic energy of 1.91 A GeV. The transverse momentum pT inte- grated directed and elliptic flow of K+ and K− mesons as well as the centrality dependence of pT - differential directed flow of K+ mesons are compared to the predictions of HSD and IQMD transport models. The data exhibits different propagation patterns of K+ and K− mesons in the compressed and heated nuclear medium and favor the existence of a kaon-nucleon in-medium po- tential, repulsive for K+ mesons and attractive for K− mesons

Droplet formation in expanding nuclear matter: a system-size dependent study

Cluster production is investigated in central collisions of Ca+Ca, Ni+Ni, 96Zr+96Zr, 96Ru+96Ru, Xe+CsI and Au+Au reactions at 0.4A GeV incident energy. We find that the multiplicity of clusters with charge Z > 2 grows quadratically with the system's total charge and is associated with a mid-rapidity source with increasing transverse velocity fluctuations