Cardiac pacemaker heart. There are 3 main stages in the generation of an action potential in a pacemaker cell. Since the stages are analogous to contraction of cardiac muscle cells, they have the same naming system. This can lead to some confusion. There is no phase 1 or 2, just phases 0, 3, and 4. The key to the rhythmic firing of pacemaker cells is that, unlike other neurons in the body, these cells will slowly depolarize by themselves and do not need any outside innervation from the autonomic nervous system to fire action potentials. As in all other cells, the resting
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