Conduction Velocity and Intracellular Action Potentials of the Tunicate Heart

The tubular heart of tunicates is composed of a single layer of myoendothelial cells. The direction of contraction reverses every few minutes. The conduction times in both directions are the same. Conduction velocity was greatest in the middle of the arms of the V-shaped heart and slowest in the apex. The greater the heart length, the greater was the conduction velocity. The Q (10) of conduction velocity was 2–2.3. Removal of the raphe which attaches the heart to the pericardium and removal of a line of undifferentiated cells opposite the raphe did not change the conduction velocity or prevent the heart from reversing the direction of conduction. The median resting potential of 42 cells was -71 mv and the median action potential was 75 mv. At 20°C the duration of the action potential was 1.2 sec and the maximal rate of depolarization was 3–10 v/sec. An increase in the beat frequency produced by electrically stimulating the heart decreased the resting potential, rate of rise, the duration, and the overshoot of the action potential. The shape of the action potential was sometimes different in the two directions of conduction. The electrophysiological evidence indicates only one cell type and suggests that the mode of the spread of excitation is by local current flow from cell to cell.