The degree to which stretch-activated channels operate during physiological length changes in multicellular heart preparations, or how much the channels could contribute to length-dependent activation, is not known. We studied the relationship between muscle length and contractile force in guinea-pig papillary muscles superfused with gadolinium chloride (10 microM), a stretch-activated channel blocker, and compared the effects to those with nifedipine (0.25 microM), a calcium channel blocker. Gadolinium reduced contractile force statistically significantly more at the longer muscle lengths than at the short muscle lengths. This did not apply with nifedipine, although a marginally greater effect at longer lengths was perceptible. The results can only partly be explained by gadolinium having a non-specific action via the calcium channel, or Na(+)-Ca2+ exchange, and are consistent with the possibility that stretch-activated channels contribute to length-dependent activation in cardiac muscle, and thus to 'Starling's Law of the Heart'.

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