Heart pump blood through the heart and into the major arteries. The pacemaker cells make up 1% of cells and form the conduction system of the heart. They are generally much smaller than the contractile cells and have few myofibrils which gives them limited contractibility. Their function is similar in many respects to neurons. Cardiac muscle tissue has autorhythmicity, the unique ability to initiate a cardiac action potential at a fixed rate – spreading the impulse rapidly from cell to cell to trigger the contraction of the entire heart. There are specific proteins expressed in cardiac muscle cells. These are mostly
Cardiac neural crest cells of differentiated cells such as neurons, glial cells, pigment-containing cells in skin, skeletal tissue cells in the head, and many more. Cardiac neural crest cells (CNCCs) are a type of neural crest cells that migrate to the circumpharyngeal ridge (an arc-shape ridge above the pharyngeal arches) and then into the 3rd, 4th and 6th pharyngeal arches and the cardiac outflow tract (OFT). They extend from the otic placodes (the structure in developing embryos that will later form the ears) to the third somites (clusters of mesoderm that will become skeletal muscle, vertebrae and dermis). The cardiac neural crest cells have