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action potential  the electrical activity developed in an excitable cell when stimulated; it may be elicited by electrical, chemical, or mechanical stimulation, by temperature change, or in certain other situations. On an electrocardiogram, action potential is seen as the cardiac cycle of a single cell, produced by a rapid sequence of changes at the cell membrane; it consists of phase 0 to phase 4, with phases 0 to 3 representing electrical systole and phase 4 representing electrical diastole. The characteristics of action potentials vary in different parts of the heart; for example, the cells of the sinoatrial and atrioventricular nodes and the atrial cells do not have phases 1 or 2 and are shorter in duration than those of the His-Purkinje system and the ventricles.




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