Exposure to airborne toxicants is tied to arrhythmia, cardiac arrest, and heart failure in the general public. Our team seeks to validate and better understand these associations. We investigate how environmental exposures impair cardiac conduction and contraction in both rodents and humans, with particular interest in the autonomic nervous system’s role in inhalant toxicity. We study the impacts of multiple stressors, including inhalation of e-cigarette aerosols, volatile organic compounds, and particulate matter, and thermal stress due to ambient heat exposures.

Current Investigative Questions

In both rodents and humans, the Carll Lab investigates:

1. The neural and cellular pathways underlying pollutant-induced myocardial dysfunction and remodeling.
2. How e-cigarette aerosols adversely affect cardiac function, intracellular signaling, and neuroregulation.
3. How the autonomic nervous system contributes to ambient heat exposure-induced cardiac dysfunction.

Findings

Our recent findings suggest that tobacco product aerosols alter cardiac conduction and promote arrhythmia in both mice and humans through autonomic, neural, and endocrine pathways.