Sinoatrial nodal artery Sinoatrial nodal artery The sinoatrial nodal artery (or sinuatrial nodal artery or sinoatrial artery) is an artery of the heart which supplies the sinoatrial node, the natural pacemaker center of the heart, and arises from the right coronary artery in around 60% of people. In about 40% of cases, the sinoatrial artery is a branch of the left circumflex coronary artery. In less than 1% of humans, the artery has an anomalous origin directly from the coronary sinus, descending aorta, or distal right coronary artery. In more than 50% of human hearts, the artery actually courses close to the superior
Sinoatrial node known as a spontaneous Ca spark. This increase in calcium within the cell then activates a sodium-calcium exchanger (NCX), which removes one Ca from the cell, and exchanges it for 3 Na into the cell (therefore removing a charge of +2 from the cell, but allowing a charge of +3 to enter the cell) therefore in-creasing the membrane potential. The calcium is later pumped back into the cell via calcium channels located on the cell membrane and SR membrane. The increase in membrane potential produced by these mechanisms, activates T-type calcium channels and then L-type calcium channels (which open very