GRELCA

GRELCA is a multidisciplinary research group located in the Departments of Medicine and Physiology of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry of the University of Valencia, led by Dr. Luis Such Belenguer, Emeritus Professor of the Department of Physiology, Dr. Francisco Javier Chorro Gascó, Head of the Cardiology Department of the Hospital Clínico Universitario and Professor of the Department of Medicine of the aforementioned University, who has extensive experience in the field of experimental cardiac electrophysiology. It is directed by Dr. Antonio Alberola Aguilar, Professor of the Department of Physiology at the University of Valencia. It includes researchers from the Research Institute of the Hospital Clínico Universitario de Valencia (INCLIVA) and from the departments of Medicine, Physiology, Nursing, Physiotherapy and Electronic Engineering. The group also has collaborating laboratories at the ITACA institute, which belongs to the Polytechnic City of Innovation, a science park of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, where close scientific collaboration with specialists in technical areas (Telecommunications Engineers, Electronic Engineers, specialists in digital signal processing and analysis, etc.) is materialised for the development of cardiac electrical activity mapping systems and the experimental equipment necessary for the evolution of the discipline, which has been in existence for more than 20 years. The complementary nature of the researchers in the group provides the framework from which to approach the study of the mechanisms involved in the onset, perpetuation and cessation of cardiac rhythm disorders, especially fibrillatory processes, with the aim of developing analysis procedures, diagnostic techniques and therapeutic alternatives in relation to arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. Our research has been directed especially towards the study of the mechanisms that regulate fibrillatory processes, both atrial and ventricular, using cartographic and spectral techniques. We are particularly interested in the analysis of proarrhythmogenic electrophysiological changes induced by ventricular mechanical stretch and the identification of pharmacological agents that counteract these effects, the study of myocardial protection derived from regular physical exercise and the analysis of the electrophysiological changes produced during ischaemic processes. Two new lines of research have recently been initiated: the implementation of a chronic infarction model to study the relationship between the characteristics of ischaemia-reperfusion injury and the inducibility and maintenance of malignant ventricular arrhythmias, and the development of an animal model of metabolic syndrome to study the impact of the combination of the different manifestations of the disease on cardiac electrical remodelling and its potential arrhythmogenic mechanisms.