The human heart beats over eighty thousand times a day, and the average person's heart may have beaten up to 3 billion times by the age of 80. During the early stages of pregnancy, the heart beat provides the first visual and auditory sign of life of the foetus. Conversely, the first audible sound that the foetus is likely to hear is the heart beat of the mother. How fitting then, that at the "birth" Physiological Reviews the very first article published in 1921 written by Eyster and Meek addressed "The origin and conduction of the heart beat".¹ In their insightful review, the authors discussed the landmark discoveries made from the mid-19^th century on the electrical function of the heart. Now, a hundred years later, at the start of the next century of Physiological Reviews, an update on the huge progress made in the "exciting" field of cardiac electrophysiology is warranted. Guided by a number of excellent reviews published in Physiological Reviews since 1921 as well as a large body of literature, an overview of the important advancements made on the topic is provided here.

中文翻译：

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进入节奏的核心：一个世纪的进步

人的心脏每天跳动超过八万次，到 80 岁时，普通人的心脏跳动次数可能高达 30 亿次。在怀孕初期，心跳是胎儿生命的第一个视觉和听觉信号。胎儿。相反，胎儿可能听到的第一个声音是母亲的心跳。那么，1921 年由 Eyster 和 Meek 撰写的第一篇文章在“出生”生理评论中发表了“心跳的起源和传导”，这是多么合适。¹在他们富有洞察力的评论中，作者讨论了自 19 世纪中期以来的里程碑式^发现世纪关于心脏的电功能。现在，一百年后，在生理学评论下个世纪的开始，有必要对心脏电生理学“令人兴奋的”领域取得的巨大进展进行更新。以自 1921 年以来在《生理学评论》上发表的许多优秀评论以及大量文献为指导，此处提供了有关该主题的重要进展的概述。